Conference Agenda
The Online Program of events for the 2026 AMS Annual Meeting appears below. This program is subject to change. The final program will be published in early November.
Use the "Filter by Track or Type of Session" or "Filter by Session Topic" dropdown to limit results by type. Some of the sessions are also color-coded: purple indicates performances, grey indicates paper forums, and orange indicates sessions which have been organized by one of the regional associations of IMS (ARLAC or IMSEA). (Sessions which are both IMS sessions and performances are only colored orange.)
Use the search bar to search by name or title of paper/session. Note that this search bar does not search by keyword.
Click on the session name for a detailed view (with participant names and abstracts).
Please note that all times are shown in the time zone of the conference. The current conference time is: 1st Sept 2026, 02:58:35am EDT
|
Daily Overview |
| Session | |
|
Responding to AIDS Session Chair: Dale Disney, University of Tennessee Discussant: Matthew Jones | |
    | |
Queer Sonorities on the Third Coast: The Impact of the Chicago Gay Men's Chorus and the Windy City Gay Chorus University of Washington The Windy City Gay Chorus (WCGC) was founded in Chicago in 1979, providing its members with both an artistic outlet and a "third place" at a time when the AIDS crisis threatened the safety of traditional LGBTQ social venues. Four years after its founding, members of the WCGC formed the Chicago Gay Men's Chorus (CGMC) following an ideological rift concerning the WCGC's finances and performance opportunities. Though each group has been historically defined by tenor and bass voices, both ensembles initially welcomed straight-identifying individuals and women, resulting in a diverse makeup since their founding. The choruses continue to this day to perform countless programs and are distinguished most notably in their repertoire; the WCGC emphasizes classical repertoire, while the CGMC presents more performances rooted in popular music traditions. To understand the history of the two choruses, we must look to the accounts and interviews provided by members of these ensembles and their audiences. I draw from archived interviews with Kip Snyder, a former WCGC vocal coach, and CGMC members Mitch Laks, Nick Kelly, and Anne Santiago to consider their musical participation as essential in maintaining the social infrastructure of the Chicagoan queer community. I also utilize articles from the Windy City Times and OUTlines: The Voice of the Gay and Lesbian Community by music critics such as Rick Reed and David Adrian to understand the reception of the CGMC's and WCGC's concerts to connect their reception histories to their local impact. In this paper, I argue that the WCGC and CGMC defined new sites for LGBTQ socialization in Chicago as the AIDS crisis necessitated alternative locales for queer joy. The accessibility of musicking with fellow LGBTQ Chicagoans afforded by these choruses had profound impacts on the social adaptation and resilience of the local queer community from the early 1980s onward, evidenced by accounts from ensemble participants and queer audiences alike. | |