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The Highland Pipes and Drums program at Winter School 2024.
Register NowWinter School is a rare opportunity to learn from some of the best players and the most creative instructors of Celtic music, while spending time in community with fellow musicians and music appreciators.
Learn MoreLearn MoreWinter School is an opportunity to learn tunes from some of the best players and the most inspiring instructors of Celtic music, spending time in community with fellow musicians and music appreciators, and just have fun!
Highland Pipes and Drums classes will be split into multiple levels based on speed of learning and experience. Your group will have a chance to learn from multiple instructors each day.
Students arrive on Monday morning, February 5th, after breakfast. The schedule will include group classes each day, a private lesson with an instructor, massed band practice, and a few fun extras. Classes end on Friday, February 9th at noon. Registration for this program also includes one complimentary ticket to the Masters of Scottish Arts concert in Edmonds on Friday, February 9th.
Kids are welcome to attend this program with a chaperone. Also check out our new Winter School program, the Kids Highland Pipes & Drums Weekend.
Prices for the Highland Pipes and Drums Program include tuition, housing, and meals:
Angus MacColl, who hails from Benderloch, Scotland, comes from an illustrious piping family and is the great grandnephew of legendary piper and composer John MacColl. With years of piping still ahead, Angus’s contribution to the MacColl dynasty is certain t orival that of his forebears. Angus has won virtually every award in piping, including the Gold Medals at Oban and Inverness, the Glenfiddich Championship twice, the Clasp at Inverness three times, the Senior Piobaireachd at Oban three times, the Silver Star for former winners MSR at Inverness, and the former winners MSR at Oban on several occasions.
Born in New Zealand and an emigrant to Scotland, Murray Henderson has won an amazing number of top awards. His accomplishments include prizes and Gold Medals at Oban and Inverness, six Clasps at Inverness, five Silver Chanters at Dunvegan Castle, London’s Bratach Gorm five times, the Former Winners MSR at London five times, and four-time Glenfiddich champion. In 2016 he was honored by being inducted into the Scottish Traditional Music Hall of Fame. Senior adjudicator for the Solo Piper’s Judges Association for both Piobaireachd and light music, Murray has judged Internationally, and at all major events in Scotland. Spanning five decades, his competitive and mentoring record has made him one of the world’s most successful, and knowledgeable pipers.
Roddy MacLeod MBE, Glasgow, Scotland is considered to be one of the most accomplished pipers of his generation and a highly regarded teacher, recitalist and adjudicator. Uniquely, he is a Grade 1 Championship winning Pipe Major and a five time Glenfiddich World Solo Piping Champion and in 2012 he was inducted into the Scottish Traditional Music Awards Hall of Fame. Throughout his career as a piper Roddy has become renowned for his sound and is a dedicated ambassador of the instrument.
Fred Morrison was born and raised near Glasgow, but it’s the celebrated Gaelic piping tradition of his father’s native South Uist, in the outer Hebrides, that forms the bedrock of his intensely expressive, uniquely adventurous style. His outstanding technical prowess saw him winning many top competition prizes while still at school, meanwhile being inspired by pioneering acts like the Bothy Band and the Tannahill Weavers. Although his first-love instrument remains the great Highland bagpipes, over the years his mastery has expanded to encompass whistles, Scottish small pipes, or reel pipes – Morrison being a pivotal popularizer of this once-rare variety – and Irish uilleann pipes. He was also one of the first Scottish artists to forge dynamic links with his Celtic cousins in Brittany and north-west Spain, adding further to his repertoire of influences and tunes, and has long been renowned as an outstanding tune composer.
Callum Beaumont currently resides in Guardbridge, Scotland. Callum is a bagpipe instructor at Dollar Academy. In a professional capacity he is a much sought after and highly rated instructor prominent around the world. With regard to band history, at twelve years of age Callum joined the Grade 1 Lothian & Borders Police, moving on to Shotts & Dykehead, Simon Fraser University and Inveraray & District, winning four World Championship titles. In 2018 and 2022, as Pipe Major of Dollar Academy Novice A, he led the band to all five major titles, including being named World Champions. Callum has now progressed on to winning many of the most prestigious titles in world piping including five Clasps, two Gold Medals, The Silver Chanter, The Silver Star and winning The Overall Title at The Glenfiddich Piping Championship in 2023.
Bruce Gandy grew up in Victoria, British Columbia, where his father was pipe-major of the local Canadian Scottish Regiment pipe band, and he learned to play from notable pipers James W. Troy and Hal Senyk. After several years in the City of Victoria Pipe Band, Bruce moved to Ontario, where he married into the piping Rollo family, and established himself as a top solo and band competitor as a member of the 1987 World Champion 78th Fraser Highlanders. Bruce also established himself as a composer of note, with many of his tunes being played by the 78th Frasers and other top bands. Bruce moved to Prince Edward Island to became Head Piping Instructor at the College of Piping and Celtic Performing Arts, and later he took the position of Piping Instructor at the Halifax Citadel, where he remains today. For the last 20 years, Bruce has been one of the dominant players on the World scene, winning the Gold Medals for Piobaireachd at The Northern Meeting (Inverness) and the Argyllshire Gathering (Oban), the Bratach Gorm (Blue Banner) in London, The Silver Star for Former Winners March, Strathspey and Reel and having been 2nd prize winner at the Glenfiddich Championships . As well, Bruce has published four books of music, produced online teaching and workshops that reach around the world, developed his own pipe chanter with McCallum Bagpipes and he is in regular demand as a tutor and performer.
From Inveraray, started piping at the age of nine and was originally taught by his grandfather, the late Pipe Major Ronald McCallum M.B.E. and later, Arthur Gillies. He has also had tuition from Jim Henderson and Hugh MacCallum. For seven years he was a member of the Scottish Power Pipe Band thereafter joining the Simon Fraser University Pipe Band from Vancouver, Canada with whom he played for eleven years. A piano tuner by trade, he is also a piping instructor at Mid Argyll Primary and Lochgilphead High Schools. Stuart is the Founder and Pipe Major of the World Champion Pipe Band, Inveraray and District. He is one of the world’s most exciting pipers and is noted for his excellent solo performances and recordings at numerous Simon Fraser University Pipe Band concerts. His truly brilliant solo performances have inspired many to take up this most difficult of all instruments. Students, young and older have benefited from his incredible ability to motivate and influence their journey and stimulate creativity.
A native of Campbeltown, Kintyre, Willie received his main tuition from his uncles Ronald McCallum and Hugh A. McCallum and also came under the guidance of Ronald McCallum, MBE, Piper to The Duke of Argyll. The McCallum family can trace their piping back to John McAlister (Willie’s 4-times great-grandfather) who won the prize pipe in 1782 at the Falkirk Tryst. Willie’s development as a youngster included not only these formal family influences but the less tangible, equally important impressions made by countless visits to the Kintyre Piping Society. Here he heard all the experts of the era, including legends such as Donald MacLeod, Donald MacPherson, and John Burgess. Willie McCallum is one of the foremost competing pipers in the world today. He is in demand as a recitalist, adjudicator, and teacher. He has five solo recordings to his credit, in addition to his appearance on a number of compilation albums recorded live at recitals and competitions. In recent years, several of his students have gained high placings at the major piping gatherings at Oban, Inverness, and London. He also has long and successful pipe band experience and was a member of the Scottish Power Pipe Band winning three major championships.
For more than three decades, Jack Lee has been regarded as one of the world’s leading pipers. His accomplishments as a solo piper, pipe band leader, and teacher cause him to be much sought after as a performer, lecturer, and teacher throughout the world. For nearly forty years, Pipe-Sergeant Jack Lee has been ranked among the world’s most accomplished pipers. He has won all the top solo prizes available: The Glenfiddich Championship, Gold Medals at both Oban and Inverness, the Clasp at Inverness (2), the Silver Star at Inverness (4), the Bratach Gorm at London (3) the Open Piobaireachd at Oban (2), the Silver Star at Oban and the Masters Invitational (2). Jack teaches many piping schools and workshops each year as well as numerous private students around the world via Skype.In October 2017, Jack won the coveted Glenfiddich Solo Piping Championship in Blair Atholl, Scotland, considered the top prize in piping. Jack is also the pipe sergeant and co-founder of the Simon Fraser University Pipe Band, which has been a consistent prize-winner at the World Championships in the past 20 years.
Steven began drumming in 1993 at the age of 10, with initial lessons from his father, Dessie. Steven joined the local Cullybackey Pipe Band in 1994, receiving snare instruction from Adrian Hoy. In 1995 Steven progressed into the snare line where he remained until Cullybackey won the Grade 2 World Drumming title in 2001. It was then that J. Reid Maxwell approached him to join the Simon Fraser University Pipe Band in Vancouver, Canada. Between the years of 2002 – 2008 he travelled from his home in Northern Ireland to compete, teach and perform with the band in British Columbia, Canada. September 2008 saw the next chapter of Steven’s drumming career develop when he and World renowned piper, Stuart Liddell joined forces to take the Inveraray & District Juvenile program into Grade 2. Since 2009 the Inveraray & District has risen to become one of the world’s most prominent pipe bands winning the World Pipe Band Championships and Champion of Champions title in 2017, both in drumming and the overall prize. Some highlights of Steven’s drumming career have been winning the World Solo Drumming Championships, the Grade 1 World Drum Corps Championships and the overall World Pipe Band Championships with Inveraray and District.
Michael Cole, from Chicago, Illinois, began his pipe band career in 1987. In addition to bass drumming, Mike has experience as a leading drummer as well as a rhythm tenor drummer. In 1998, he won the Best Bass award in Grade 2 at the World Pipe Band Championships. His bass sections have won he Grade 1 North American titles in Maxville, Ontario in 2006, 2007, and 2011. Mike won the 2007 and 2012 Mid-West Highland Arts Gold Medal in the professional bass drumming competition in Kansas City. In 2010, Mike guested as the bass drummer for the Grade 1 Inveraray and District Pipe Band and played all the major contests with them. A retired professional educator, Mike instructs at workshops, seminars, and summer camps in the US, Canada, Mexico, and Scotland. He also serves as drumming adjudicator at competitions.