Barbershop champs head to US for international contest

A Wellington teenage barbershop quartet heads off to a major international competition next week keen to improve on their third placing last year.

Musical Island Boys, from Tawa, north of Wellington, head to Salt Lake City, Utah on Saturday week to take on 21 of the best collegiate barbershop quartets in the world in the America Collegiate Contest, being held as part of the International Barbershop Convention.

The team, all of Maori and Pacific Island descent, finished third in the event last year, held in Louisville, Kentucky, making them the first quartet from outside North America to place in the top three of the contest.

The members - Matthew Gifford, 18, Jeffrey Hunkin, 18, William Hunkin, 19, and Marcellus Washburn, 19 - have an outstanding record domestically.

They won the New Zealand secondary schools quartet contest representing Tawa College in 2002 and 2003, were third in the New Zealand Men's Open in 2003 and last year won the Men's Open and the Pan Pacific Open contest with the highest ever score from a New Zealand quartet.

- NZPA