Photos this spread by Dawn Mellon (wife of Michael Biggs)
Making a difference in the Cook Islands
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A tradition for Oregon kids, Tone Deaf brought its shtick to a new nation
Michael Biggs
Tenor, Tone Deaf Quartet tonedeaftenor@ icloud.com
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Every year for the past 20 years, bari Al Robins and lead Tom Walker sang for between 2,000 and 3,000 children on Valentine’s Day with their old quartet, Delusions of Grandeur. Now with Tone Deaf (from Oregon’s Rogue Valley Harmonizers and Salem Senateaires), they thought it would be fun to make a difference in the lives of the children of a small country that isn’t familiar with barbershop harmony. We eventually made arrangements with the Cook Islands, a small nation of 11,000 with strong ties to New Zealand, which is almost 1,900 miles to the southwest. Thanks to the hard work by Jan Harrell (Al’s wife), in March, the quartet (often a quintet with Aaron Longsdon, tenor from Delusions) arrived as an entourage of 13 to drummers and great fanfare in the airport, and the applause only got louder during
The HARMONIZER • July/August 2014
our 10-day visit with 12 full-hour performances within six days. We performed at a resort, churches, high schools, and especially for elementary school children. For our first school visit, we arrived to be greeted by the singing voices of the 456 children of Avarua School. We responded by clucking onto stage in our toasty chicken suits. The laughter was
Author Michael Biggs had mixed feelings about the trappings of fame
Back: Doug Borngasser, Michael Biggs, Al Robins, Tom Walker
Front: Aaron Longsdon with school principal and kids