Scottish games and festival
The 12th annual Clover Scottish Games and Scotch-Irish Festival, Feis Chlobhair, will be 9 a.m.-4 p.m. June 14 at Clover Memorial Stadium.
Events include a Scottish athletics competition, highland dancing, border collie exhibition, pipe bands, armed forces appreciation ceremony, vendors, genealogy and clan information tents, and children’s activities.
Featured entertainment is gael Warning, a progressive bagpipe-jazz-aboriginal-fusion band from Charlotte featuring Jeff Chester, Dave McKenzie, Trip Rogers and Tom Eure.
Admission and parking are free. Details: 803-222-3312; clovergames@aol.com;
www.cloverscottishgames.com. – Melanie Bass
I’ve been playing the highland bagpipes for most of my life. I was taught as a young boy by Dennis McMaster, former pipe major of the Salt Lake Scots Bagpipe Band. I played as a competitive bagpiper for many years and won several solo and pipe band competitions in the Western United States Pipe Band Association. In 1994 I traveled with the band to Glasgow Scotland to compete in the Bagpipe Band World Championships. What a great experience! I left the Salt Lake Scots Bagpipe Band in 1999 and went on to pursue other opportunities.
During the summer of 2005 Michael Gibbs, an old bagpiping buddy contacted me about forming an association of professional bagpipers. That October the Heathen Highlanders were born and we are still going strong. It’s in this group that I coined the catch name “Bagpipe Heathen.”
I have performed at just about every kind of event imaginable and had a lifetime of great experiences as a musician and performer. I’ve shared the joy at weddings and parties with my clients, and I’ve mourned with them at funerals of their loved ones. I’ve been honored to provide bagpiping services for the memorials of veterans, fire fighters and law enforcement officers. All true American heroes.
This is my legacy as a bagpiper… One that I will continue.
If you would like the Great Highland Bagpipes at your event please contact me @ 801-661-4168
I would like to thank all of those who taught and mentored me as a piper and a special thanks to my parents, siblings, wife and children for the years of support and encouragement they have given me as a musician.
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The bagpipe, that Rodney Dangerfield of the woodwinds, is finally getting some respect.
Since UC Riverside inaugurated its degree programs in bagpipes and Scottish drums last fall, the spindly, awkward, noisy instrument and its Highland cousin have been elevated to the highest academic status possible alongside the piano, cello and clarinet within its music department.
Three pipers and one drummer have enrolled in what may be the only program of its kind in the world where students can major in pipes or drums.
That’s a long way to come for an instrument that few appreciate and even fewer can play well.
Ian Whitelaw, arguably the best piper in the Western Hemisphere, wants to change that.
Whitelaw, the new pipe director at UCR, brings a lifelong love of piping and a passion for its history and culture to the position. Ditto drumming director Ed Best, who has been playing Scottish drums since he was 8.
Walter Clark, music department chairman, is convinced that once word is out that UCR has Whitelaw teaching bagpipes and Best teaching Scottish drums, people will flock to the fledgling program…
Reach Elaine Regus at 951-368-9478 or eregus@PE.com
KILSYTH soldier Corporal Alastair Tripney (26) had the honour of playing in front of Her Majesty The Queen.
Pipers from the five regular battalions of the Royal Regiment of Scotland (SCOTS) played at the State Banquet during the visit of French President Nicolas Sarkozy to Windsor Castle. It is the first time that the Royal Regiment of Scotland has been given the honour to be the Sovereign’s Pipers at a state banquet.
The pipers had been rehearsing at the headquarters of the Army’s School of Bagpipe Music and Highland Drumming at Redford Infantry Barracks in Edinburgh where they marched in and around the headquarters to try and recreate the Windsor Castle setting prior to playing at the state banquet before Her Majesty The Queen and the French President.
Serving San Francisco, the Bay Area and surrounding counties (will also travel). Weddings, parties, funerals, graduation ceremonies, fundraisers… Full Highland Dress. Reliable and punctual. Please call (415) 317-3081 or email TheLadyPiper [at] yahoo.com and I'll be happy to help you plan how to use the pipes best on your special day
All denominations served, traditional and non-traditional Always punctual and dependable, reasonable prices. Full Highland Dress Serving the San Francisco Bay Area, California & The World! (will travel)