This past weekend Harmony Ranch (a trailer park for barbershoppers in Baldwin, Ontario) was the site of yet another very successful Ontario Quartet Event. This annual event is designed to bring together barbershoppers from across Ontario, and this year even a few from upstate New York, to develop and expand quartetting skills. Each year the organizers select eight great new, singable songs, and make the sheet music and recordings available months in advance so that the participants can get the notes/words “off the page” prior to the event. The agenda for the OQE day is then a packed one, kicking off with a run through the songs together as 70+ man OQE chorus. Participants are then grouped randomly into quartets for an hour of practice with one of the volunteer coaches, a process that repeats 4 more times throughout the day. All this is in preparation for the evening competition, where quartets are again randomly selected, and each quartet is randomly assigned one of the 8 songs to compete with.
East York was well represented at OQE this year, fielding 6 participants (including 2 who switched from their regular voice part to mix things up) and 4 coaches. By coincidence 3 of the East Yorkers even ended up in the same competing quartet! 18 quartets ultimately competed, with the victory going to a quartet that included East York’s Geoff Shields on Lead.
Huge thanks go out to the OQE organizing committee (Ray, Eddie, Hayley and Cathy) and their teams for all the hard work, to the volunteer coaches for sharing their time and expertise, to Barry Stringer for MC’ing, to P.A.G.E. 4 quartet for judging, to the Ontario District for its financial support for the event, to Harmony Ranch for hosting the event and providing the enthusiastic audience, and of course to all of the great guys who participated!!