NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt - Recognition and Influence

Recognition and Influence

• The NAMES Project was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.
• The Quilt is the subject of the 1989 Peabody Award- and Academy Award-winning documentary film Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt, produced by Rob Epstein and Bill Couturié, and narrated by Dustin Hoffman.
• Songwriter Tom Brown wrote the song "Jonathan Wesley Oliver, Jr." about the Quilt in 1988.
• In 1990 John Corigliano's Symphony No. 1, inspired by The AIDS Memorial Quilt, premiered in New York.
• Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens, a song cycle developed in the late 1980s with music by Janet Hood and lyrics and additional text by Bill Russell, features songs and monologues inspired by The Quilt.
• In 1992 The AIDS Quilt Songbook, a collection of new musical works about the devastation of AIDS compiled by Lyric baritone William Parker who solicited them from composers with whom he had previously worked.
• Washington D.C.'s Different Drummers (DCDD) and the Lesbian and Gay Chorus of Washington (LGCW) commissioned Quilt Panels from composer Robert Maggio in 2001.
• The NAMES Project was the basis for the musical Quilt, A Musical Celebration
• The AIDS Memorial Quilt was mentioned and shown during the years that General Hospital held their Nurses Ball (1994–2001) raising money for AIDS research. And the character of Stone Cates was celebrated with a quilt in 1996.
• "Never to Be Forgotten" is a 54-minute video documenting the Quilt's June, 1988 visit to Detroit, Michigan. This display was part of a 20-city tour initiated after the 1987 Washington, DC inaugural showing. The piece opens with footage of the opening ceremony from the Washington DC display and then moves to coverage of the Detroit event. Included are the opening and closing ceremonies along with a look at the set up and take down of the display. Volunteers share their feelings about participating in the event and the viewer is given a close-up look at the individual panels.