Greek thinkers separated love into multiple varieties, rather than the single overarching word we have in English. Much has been written about these different types of love.
The choir can be a great place to explore the love that the Greeks called philia, which is often translated in English as “brotherly love.” You might call it deep friendship or true friendship to avoid the gendered adjective.
The deep love felt between friends is an important bond, different than romantic love or love of family. And it’s one you’re not going to find easily in many environments; nor, I think, in the social media “friendships” that form the core of so many friend interactions in 2020.
So we turn to the choir. The act of making music together–working through challenges, learning to truly listen to each other, facing personal struggles and sharing openly in and out of rehearsal–is, at its core, a process for building philia.
The reason so many lifelong bonds are built in choir is because the choir needs philia to reach the pinnacles of performance, and philia is not easily set aside. It’s just one more gift that choirs give to their singers.