Scots College Sydney plays to new heights over Shanghai
Pipe bands have played at and to great heights: Estes Park in Colorado at 7,522 feet above sea level; impromptu (and definitely entirely sober) 35,000-foot performances on jet planes; and of course, the Grade 1 events at this year’s World Championships.
But the 42 piping and drumming students from Sydney, Australia’s Scots College juvenile bands might well have set the record for the highest performance in a building when they played at the top of the 2,073-foot Shanghai Tower in China, the world’s third-tallest building.
The band stopped at the tower while participating in the 2026 Shanghai International Music Festival, where millions watched the televised opening parade through a city of more than 25 million.
During the festival, the band performed with the Minhang School Chinese Orchestra, and also at the famous 1,536-foot Pearl Tower.
The Scots College piping and drumming program is overseen by Paul Hughes, pipe-major of the Grade 2 Pipe Band Club, and Head of Drumming Christopher Johnston, Snare Drum Assistant Keith Tombs, and Piping Tutor Aidan Bestwick.
The Scots College bands travel frequently, last year taking prizes in the Novice A and Novice B finals at the World Championships.
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