interview with ames

Pride Is a Riot (PIR): Can you tell us a bit about your journey in music—where it began and how it’s evolved over the years?

Ames: As a Gen X kid I grew up on 80’s Top 40 radio, which included Michael Jackson, Madonna, Prince, Cyndi Lauper, Whitney Houston, and so on - all the while I was squirming in piano lessons because I hated to practice. I loved music best when I was dancing in front of the mirror in the basement with the stereo on. I had brief affairs with guitar and clarinet, but middle school bullying scared me out of band class and I thought music was all over for me.

But then the 90’s hit, and I took refuge in my headphones, where I kept a heady mix of hip-hop, grunge, and the soundtrack to Disney’s Fantasia. I was also singing a lot in a church where the priest had an incredible talent for Gregorian chant and made that tradition the community standard for singing. From there my musical tastes started to mature and diversify very quickly.

PIR: What drew you to choral work specifically, and what keeps you passionate about it today?

Ames: The first defining moment came when I auditioned for a musical in my sophomore year of high school. At the initial tryout, Ms. Barnett (“Barney”) pointed to me and said, “YOU should be in choir.” That changed everything - I auditioned for the chamber choir and sang with them for the rest of high school. For the last choral concert of my senior year, Barney took a radical move as a choral educator and enlisted student conductors. I was one of three girls chosen to do it, and that experience really put the hook in me to study music in college.

At Grinnell College, I sang with the Grinnell Singers - the auditioned touring group led by John Christian Rommereim. Rommereim was also radical as a choral educator - mostly for his music choices, but also for appointing me as an emergency conductor on two different tours when one of our singers got hospitalized and he had to either stay behind with them or fill in for them on baritone. Stepping up and conducting just felt natural to me, like the freedom of dancing in the basement, and so it was a no-brainer for me to study it further in grad school.

PIR: What are some key moments or milestones in your music career that stand out as especially meaningful?

Ames: In my first year of grad school at Bowling Green State, I thought I was hot stuff as a conductor…until I met another conducting student who was in the EIGHTH year of his four-year undergraduate studies, and I had the most pivotal conversation of my life with him. I said to him, “The most important thing is to know the score, right?” And he said, “No…It’s to know your singers.” That was a paradigm shift moment. It’s not about being faithful to the written music like it’s scripture. It’s about the singers - who they are, what their passions are, what they reveal of themselves when they’re singing. The music doesn’t exist on the page - it exists between people. And as much as I love scores and music theory, the real magic always happens between me and the singers.

PIR: How has your identity or community shaped the music you create or the spaces you lead?

Ames: My years during and after grad school were spent trying to shape a musical identity out of what other people expected of me, rather than what I wanted to cultivate for myself. I was in and out of choirs, in and out of bands, pinballing around. Music was my home, but I was making that home in various motels, it seemed. Then right before the Covid pandemic hit, I distinguished that I was queer. It was the best and worst time to do that - a perfect time to hermit and educate myself, but a terrible time to actively connect with the queer community. When lockdown conditions eased up, I started meeting more new people in person, including one who would introduce me to Sing Out Detroit.

PIR: As the director of Sing Out Detroit, how do you approach empowering each member’s voice—literally and figuratively?

Ames: It’s all about listening. It begins with listening in auditions for what the voice likes to do, what skills are there, what’s the potential. I want to program music and share vocal techniques that draw all those things out of every singer. In moments where I can be one-on-one with a singer, singers often tell me why they sing and where that desire comes from, and I’ve heard too many times the stories of singers who were once told by a teacher, director, or parent that they weren’t good enough in some way, or didn’t conform to the arbitrary vocal standards of the tradition they were working in. It’s heartbreaking to hear those stories, so it makes me more determined to deepen my connection with these singers and offer them a space where their voice can feel safe to open up more fully.  

PIR: Can you share a moment from your time with Sing Out Detroit that reflects the joy or impact of the community you’ve built?

Ames: It would have to be the creative playdate I organized to determine the theme for the fall 2025 concert season. I gathered in a carpeted room with about a dozen singers, instrumentalists and board members to play with colorful markers and sticky notes and visualize the experience of the coming season. Some of them had been with the organization for over a decade, some were brand new. We all took the chance to see beyond the challenges of the current season and chart out new constellations by which to sail in a wider sky, as our community has been growing and deepening its connections. The joy and excitement brought us close together in a beautiful way, much more beautiful than sitting around a table and voting on things.

PIR: What does the phrase “Queer Art Is Resistance” mean to you personally and professionally?

Ames: Everything. Just everything. 

PIR: How do you see music—especially choral music—as a form of activism or social commentary?

Ames: Every single social justice movement in this country has had a soundtrack, and that soundtrack has always included group singing. This has been the case ever since the dawn of the time of enslavement, when enslaved people would conspire for their liberation by singing spirituals. This was coded language and a charter for freedom. Little has changed, even as traditions moved from the fields and streets to the stage and studio. The queer rights movement has had its own particular soundtrack of group singing, which now includes the music of hundreds of LGBTQ+ affirming choirs across the country.

PIR: In what ways does your work challenge norms, reclaim narratives, or create space for belonging?

Ames: The very existence of a queer choir in a community does all those things, but I must also mention that the presence of queer and trans PEOPLE in ANY choir does those things too. But those singers would be nowhere without music directors, teachers, and leaders who are willing to educate themselves about queer and trans voices and take the radical step of upending centuries of tradition around how voices are heard, critiqued, and categorized. The voice is a major pillar holding up this gender system that looms over us all, and it can’t be broken down with one blow from someone like me. It will take the entire current generation of vocalists, voice teachers, artistic directors, voice scientists and therapists to educate themselves and work in their respective realms to imagine a world where WE the singers - and not any institution - determine our gender story and sing it through in our voices.

PIR: What advice would you give to queer artists (or allies) who are looking to use their creative voice for change?

Ames: Don’t ever let fear stop you.

PIR: How can people support or connect with your work?

Ames: The singers of Sing Out Detroit are a great point of contact wherever you may cross paths with them. The website is also good: singoutdetroit.org. Get on the mailing list, ask about volunteering, come to a show, visit us at Pride - with June coming up, we’ll definitely be out there.