CPA season debuts with focus on connection and wellness

When famed mandolinist Chris Thile steps on stage Friday night at Memorial Hall, his charming style of storytelling should set the perfect tone for a Carolina Performing Arts season that is all about connection.

The Grammy-winning artist blends heart, humor and genre-defying virtuosity, using his mandolin to cover expansive musical ground — Bach, bluegrass and his own improvisational pieces.

“It’s wonderful to open the season with someone who just welcomes you in — that sense of an invitation to be together,” said Alison Friedman, the James and Susan Moeser executive and artistic director of Carolina Performing Arts.

“Such a range of folks are coming to the opening, it’s a great way to celebrate a year that’s about connection, belonging and the unexpected ways that we intersect.”

As Friedman and her team curated CPA’s 2025-26 season, they rallied behind a mantra of “long live the arts.” Starting with Thile, the CPA season emphasizes the transformative power of live performance to foster joy, human connection and wellness.

Each performance underscores the idea that live art is essential for a long, healthy life.

“The great thing about the arts is it can be part of your life for the rest of your life,” Friedman said. “‘Long live the arts’ expresses the evolution of our purpose, which is to foster belonging and wellness through the arts. The arts are a tool and a vehicle to contribute to a healthier, more interconnected community.”

A spirit of collaboration

Have you ever wondered how music interacts with the neuroscience of your brain? That’s one of several bold questions CPA aims to explore this season — through live performance and collaborations with the broader Carolina community.

UNC Health is among the partners collaborating with CPA to explore the themes of select performances through offstage dialogue, wellness programming and shared community experiences.

The first UNC Health collaboration is with Pony Cam’s “Burnout Paradise” on Oct. 28-29, a one-of-its-kind event featuring four performers from Australia running on treadmills as they attempt to complete a series of escalating tasks. The performance poignantly — and hilariously — illustrates the concept of burnout. Meanwhile, a panel of UNC Health professionals will dig into the science behind the phenomenon and how to prevent it.

Later in the season, on Jan. 23, acclaimed soprano Renée Fleming will team up with Carolina neuroscientists and other medical experts to lead a captivating discussion on “Music and Mind,” exploring how music and the arts can have a profound impact on health, emotional well-being and the brain. The following night, Fleming will perform “Voice of Nature: the Anthropocene,”  a concert that highlights nature’s beauty and fragility.

Those performances are just two examples of the myriad ways CPA will engage with the UNC-Chapel Hill community this season.

 “We have a stage — not just a figurative stage — but a literal stage to showcase to a broader public all the incredible work that thought leaders at UNC are doing and how their work intersects in so many ways,” Friedman said.

Other collaborations include:

• In partnership with the music department in the UNC College of Arts and Sciences, CPA will host more than a dozen free clinics with members of the Philadelphia Orchestra, which will perform Nov. 4-5 at Memorial Hall.
• The Carolina Aging Network will provide research and insights to coincide with the Nov. 19-20 performances of “Lost Lear,” an Irish play that reimagines Shakespeare’s “King Lear” through a lens of dementia and aging.
• The Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Research in Black Culture and History will host a Divine Nine Night — a celebration of historically Black fraternities and sororities —to coincide with the first night of the Feb. 24-25 performances by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

For information on tickets — and to see the full 2025-26 schedule — visit the Carolina Performing Arts website.