All Seasons Adult Care resident Mary Stoutland, left, the center's owner, Melody Fox, and resident Anne Longo listen as Audrey Alderson, second from right, sings along with Tina Eaton's harp music during a visit to the assisted-living home in Scottsdale.

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For the past five years, Audrey Alderson and her husband have auditioned musicians and artists and trained them in how to share their talents and interact with seniors.

Today, they have an aggregation of 75 people available to perform for $25 per venue, far less than they could earn performing elsewhere.

On one Friday afternoon at All Seasons Adult Care in Scottsdale, folk harpist Tina Eaton's lilting Irish singing caught a ride on the sounds she plucked out on a 31-string harp.

For more than an hour, Eaton wove stories, her experiences, Irish charm and a careful mix of music.

"Sometimes we get smiles where smiles don't always come," Eaton says.

"We are talking about a season of life here with the seniors. Many of them are in pain, they are despairing with their conditions, and life is very serious for them."

"Bridges across time and memory" is how Alderson describes her ministry to Phoenix-area seniors.

When she turns her force of Audrey's Angels loose on aging folks in 106 small adult-care homes and 11 adult day-care centers, the performers evoke joy, tapping feet and memories.

Sometimes, the Angels' music — delivered by guitar, piano, mandolin, banjo, fiddle and other instruments — triggers responses in residents with Alzheimer's disease or dementia who may not stir otherwise when visitors bring something new.

All Seasons owner Melody Fox says she constantly looks for ways to enrich the lives of her five residents.

"They may be older and unable to live alone, but they still want to have fun and enjoy themselves," Fox says.

So Friday afternoon has become a time they look forward to. That's when Audrey's Angels "will grace our doorstep and give us something special for the day," she says.

Alderson and husband Bob launched Audrey's Angels in November 2001.

At the time, Bob's father had Alzheimer's disease, and Alderson's aunt was in another home where its manager asked the couple whether they could help start sing-alongs.

Alderson had retired from the staff of Paradise Valley United Methodist Church, and the idea of an arts ministry to seniors struck a chord.

"We believe that God has called us to make a difference," Alderson says.

All Angels, combined, perform for 350 hours a month to the homes.

Angels reach more than 2,000 residents monthly, the majority in homes licensed for no more than 10 residents.

The Angels have a waiting list, and Alderson says she wishes her musicians could reach out to all 1,600 small group homes in the Phoenix metropolitan area, but that would take additional funding.