Congratulations to Inveraray & District Pipe Band who have been nominated in Pipe band of the Year sponsored by The National Piping Centre in the MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards 2014. Vote now!
We asked Inveraray & District Pipe Band the following questions.
In 2003, renowned piper Stuart Liddell took up a new position teaching piping in schools in the Mid Argyll area. He had always had a vision that Inveraray might one day have a pipe band again, the previous Inveraray Pipe Band having disbanded in the late 1930s.
In September 2003, the Inveraray Piping Project was born. With the assistance of local people, Tuesday nights at Inveraray Primary School became the time and venue for weekly piping tuition and practices and the small group began to grow. By May 2004, there were five young pipers- including Laura McMillan, Laura Underwood and Alasdair Dempster- and a drummer, Graeme McMillan, who remain members to this day. In the summer of 2004, Stuart was joined by Dougie Campbell, who was at that time living in Dunoon, to assist with the teaching at these meetings and an ethos of player improvement through individual teaching was developed. As the intensity of the project increased, a Sunday meeting was soon added, a balance always being struck between the hard graft, on the one hand, and recreation and team building on the other.
In 2005, built upon these foundations, Inveraray and District Pipe Band (“IDPB”) was formed when it registered with the RSPBA. It competed in its first competition in the Novice Juvenile grade at Cowal Games in August 2005, with borrowed drums and its young members clad in uniforms of various colours.
The next few years, kick-started by National Lottery funding and much local support, saw the band rise through the RSPBA Grades with unprecedented momentum, as detailed below. Following the considerable success of the band in the Juvenile grade, a decision was reached that the band would thereafter compete in the adult grades to enable the older members to remain. The RSPBA took the unusual step of grading the band from Juvenile directly into Grade 2 owing to its success. At that stage, to strengthen the drum corps within the band, World Solo Drumming Champion Steven McWhirter left the Simon Fraser University (SFU) Pipe Band to take over as IDPB’s Leading Drummer. Stuart also departed SFU at that time to enable him to compete full time as Pipe Major with IDPB.
The band continues to be a regular prize winner at the major events and a centre of excellence built on strong foundations. The attention to detail and focus on individual and collective playing quality that were a feature of its embryonic beginnings remain to this day in all sections of the band. The current incarnation of IDPB is less parochial- in fact, truly international- with members from several continents. The membership features highly decorated individual performers; graduates of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland; an abundance of capable composers and arrangers, and several performers with a wider musical pedigree than purely piping or drumming.
Read more about Inveraray & District Pipe Band
http://www.idpb.co.uk
Buy a ticket for the MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards on Saturday 13th December in Inverness Leisure, start time 7pm. You’ll have a great time!
