His unassuming and dependable presence in the Big Apple Chorus might be overlooked like mortar between the bricks of a wondrous building, but quietly from behind the scene and valiantly from the front row, this quintessential team player has been a pillar in the Manhattan Chapter since it's inception. There is a bittersweet irony about a shy guy who puts himself out and out front for his team as does this month's featured BACman, Gordon Harrison.

Big Apple Chorus, Director Emeritus, Scott Brannon recently said of Gordon Harrison that "he should be nominated among the first into a Big Apple Chorus Hall of Fame, if there ever is one.

The tongue in cheek caricature of "in your face" New Yorkers that our Big Apple Chorus loves to don on stage couldn't be more alien to Gordon's modesty. But when bravado is called for on the front row, he beams and dances big enough to project it to the back of the house, as he has for nearly 23 years!

Since the time he first came to the Manhattan Chapter in 1983 he says it has been a challenge to put aside dogging self-doubt and a stubbornly reclusive, introverted inclination to do what needed to be done. Oddly, the stage gives him a chance and a space to temporarily get out of his own skin, and shine at something at which he knows he's good. To the benefit of the Big Apple Chorus, he's done it with abandon for all these years. He may be demurring, even vaguely melancholy after the curtains come down but he has passion, guts and attitude when it goes up.

His early interest in singing was influenced, in part, by a family friend, a Princeton Glee Club Alumnus and a paternal surrogate roll model (Gordon's father died when Gordon was five). He introduced Gordon, as a child, to the Princeton University's a cappella groups. In high school Gordon belonged to the school's chorus. He also found that he was received well when he informally improvised bass harmony in church. Gordon says there wasn't necessarily a great deal of emphasis on music or singing at home in his youth but coincidental and completely independently of Gordon, his sister Patricia is a member of Sweet Adelines, International (the sister association of the men's Barbershop Harmony Society).

It was in his early teens when he first discovered barbershop harmony and began buying Barbershop Harmony Society recordings. He recalls his first barbershop record: the top International quartets of 1964 newly off the press.

For many years after Gordon purchased his first Barbershop record he sang with only the world's best quartets…privately…with their recordings, that is. It certainly helped him develop a discerning ear for well-tuned chords, strong vocal skills and his mellifluous bass/baritone range. It also laid the groundwork for a musical love to which he remains devoted.

Gordon says his solitary bachelor's life is devoted to second attachment he acquired as a young man. He has made a life at Princeton University beyond his life as a student there. "Orange and black [the school colors] flows in my veins".

Initially Gordon pursued engineering but ultimately opted for a more successful run at the liberal arts. He concentrated in the classics and found consolation in an Epicurean love of solitary nature and level headedness. His election as his class Treasurer foreshadowed a lifelong fiduciary involvement in campus life beyond his student days, eventually leading him to philanthropic work as Treasurer for the Princeton Prospect Foundation, as an anonymous benefactor of Princeton's early Gay Student Association and, in 1986, as a founding member of the University's, now well established, Fund for Reunion; a gay philanthropic alumni association and a multi-million dollar educational endowment.

Despite his love for singing he shied away from it during his undergraduate college years. Instead, in his free time he was his eating club's Treasurer and its Sports Chairmen and an active top player on 11 of Princeton's varsity teams.

Golf in particular runs pretty deep in Gordon's bones. His father was an avid golfer and his mother was a high scoring competitive amateur golfer. He has fond recollections of various mother and son tournaments and won a New Jersey Metropolitan Junior's Medal in 1964. At Princeton he earned a varsity letter in Golf with a five handicap.

Gordon doesn't brag but he recalls with a hint of glee, a youthful 1967 coup: "Fred Waring [the bandleader of "The Pennsylvanians] loved golf and ran a big amateur twosome tournament over at Shawnee. I was paired, with a partner and I had a match against a team that had Arnold Palmer's brother-in-law (Marty Walzer) on it, Arnold's wife (Winnie Palmer) my team won!"

After undergraduate work, he went on to graduate schools, with a fellowship grant, in pursuit of a PhD in classical archeology. But before completing his post graduate work, he took a leave of absence, in 1969 to join the army reserve, successfully avoiding service in Vietnam. He returned to his academic studies after his service in the reserve (Ft. Dix) but by then found, before earning his PhD that he'd lost the academic spark and abandoned student life.

At home with University life otherwise, however, he sought and found employment, in 1974, managing the complete operation of five of Princeton's campus eating clubs (the traditional and institutional epicenter of the upperclassmen's campus social life). Today, he continues to manage the operations of three of the clubs with the same meticulous devotion he had as a classmen and to his music.

Gordon might have gone on being contented to privately sing along with records only. Fortunately for the members of the Princeton and Manhattan chapters of BHS the same year Gordon began working for the University, one of his long time associates and a member of the Barbershop Harmony Society (who undoubtedly knew Gordon loved barbershop) finally succeeded at getting Gordon to attend and join the Princeton NJ B.H.S. Chapter, where he is still an active member.

[Nassau Blend shot] Soon after joining BHS Gordon luckily found himself in a quartet (The Nassau Blend- John Nabinger, William Mingham, Seth). Together, they were good enough to come close to producing the pure harmony he'd learned while singing with records. For the Chapter they were lucky to find themselves a dedicated long-term member, a section leader and treasurer.

In 1983, Gordon was drawn to a nascent Manhattan chapter by the charismatic leadership of its founding director Don Clause. He joined, as a charter member and today holds duel membership with the Princeton chapter. Beside Manhattan's extraordinary musicality he was delighted to discover, among its 100 man chorus that no one cared what his affiliations or circumstances were: rich, poor, gay, straight, Republican, Democrat, black or white, old or young, musically literate or illiterate, boisterous or reserved (all of whom he discovered, naturally enough, in ample supply, in this mix of iconoclastic Metropolitan New Yorkers); as long as you could sing nothing else mattered.

As gripped by insecurities, as Gordon boldly concedes he's disposed, he knew when he joined the Manhattan that he could read music well, sang in tune, harmonized easily and had the kind of bright, light, bass voice that Barbershop singers clamor to sing with. The sense of an embracing, multi-dimensional, extended family continues to prove to be part of the Chapter's appeal, along with its high musical standards.

Even though he's self effacing and uncomfortable in positions of leadership, Gordon has earned the right to be proud of having been the Chorus' Bass section leader for nearly 20 years. He has also been a member of the Board of Directors and the Chapter's meticulous treasurer for over 20 years continuously! For years before the digital revolution, Gordon, single handedly duplicated, labeled and distributed (often at his own expense) all the audio learning cassettes which the chapter used and depended upon to teach non-readers their voice part. And, until 2005 he was quietly proud to be the longest and last standing "front row man" since the chorus's inception in 1983. For all his selfless work Gordon received Manhattan's rarely awarded Barbershopper of the Year Award.

In spite of his reluctance to show-off or compete, Gordon stood out of the chorus as a member of more than five quartets, including some of Manhattan's most accomplished musician like BHS Judging Category specialist, arranger Roger Payne. Most recently he sang bass with "Yes Indeed", a competitive, Manhattan based, quartet. Although the quartet competed and performed regularly for nine years (it recently disbanded), he was not in it for the contests, the accolades or the shows, but, he says, for the visceral pleasure of the harmony and good fellowship. For Gordon the rewards of the chorus and quarteting come from making the sound. While he did not relish the contests or performances, he was always ready, willing and able to do whatever ridiculous things the quartets wanted to do; and wasn't above a little dry or ironic humor played against his Ivy League formality.

It's an irrepressible force of humanity for a stoic, modest, almost painfully shy, levelheaded man's life and livelihood to center around a passionate devotion to a performing art, and the operation of fraternal, social and philanthropic organizations. Even if he says he'd be just as content in the woods away from people, aloof as Gordon may seem, he has a tremendous soft spot for us all.

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Steve Adams	Dan George	Gabe Butler	Glynn Fluitt	Jim and Michael Steiner

Scott Brannon	Gary Ford	Brad Verebay	Vinny Haynes	Frank Hendricks	The Patricias

Bob Kovach	Joe Husstege	Gordon Harrison	Roger Payne	Dick White

John Gouveia	Pat Kelly