In Memoriam

Our Fifth Section honors the more than 300 chorus members we have lost, many of them to HIV/AIDS. The name belongs to the list of every member who has died, which the chorus keeps and for years printed in every concert program. At every concert, each singer carries the name of a member in their pocket, keeping someone who came before us close.

The losses were staggering. By 1993, AIDS had taken 115 members. In June 2006, a quarter-century into the epidemic, the Chronicle counted 257 obituaries against 210 active singers: more members lost than were then on stage. Backstage, singers had a saying before the curtain rose: “I sing for two.”

By 1993, AIDS had taken 115 members. . Eric Luse's Chronicle staff photo

Through the 1980s and early 1990s, rehearsals opened with news of who was in which hospital room and when the next memorial would be. Members traded tips on getting into drug trials, sang to friends in their final hours and became family to men whose own families had turned away. Founding member Bob Emery, one of four original singers still performing, believed that without AIDS there would have been two or three choruses by then.

Longtime member Tom Burtch kept the Fifth Section list for years. When he overheard a new singer say he had never known anyone with HIV, Burtch walked over and introduced himself, so the story would be passed on. The men of the Fifth Section will always have a place on stage with us.

Where they’re remembered

Beyond our own stage, the Fifth Section is honored in two of the country’s great AIDS memorials.

The AIDS Memorial Quilt. The chorus’s own panel, “Gay Men’s Chorus – San Francisco,” is sewn into Block 0241 of the Quilt, alongside panels for Gary Wilson, Gerald, Steve Amos, Bob Beale, Mark Hermes, Philip Graham and Al Cherry. Search the Quilt for block 0241 to see it.

The SFGMC AIDS Quilt - the largest continuously design piece of all the Quilt. 32 panels representing 309 members of the Fifth Section.

The Artists Portal. In 2011, then–Artistic Director Dr. Tim Seelig proposed a monument to the artists lost to AIDS. The chorus worked with the National AIDS Memorial on its design, site, funding and labor, and on December 1, 2018, formally dedicated the Artists Portal on a hilltop at the western end of the National AIDS Memorial Grove in Golden Gate Park, just before singing at the 25th annual World AIDS Day National Observance. Visitors can ring its 8½-foot Emperor Chime and speak the names of those they have lost.