James MacHattie to become Director of Education at PEI College of Piping

pipes|drums has learned that the well known piper James MacHattie has accepted a new post with the College of Piping & Celtic Performing Arts at Summerside, Prince Edward Island, Canada, in which he will oversee the organization’s piping and drumming programs. The move follows two years of changes since the death of the College’s Director, Scott MacAulay, during which three Executive Directors were hired, two of whom either resigned or were dismissed.

MacHattie will become Director of Education and will start in the coming weeks. His role will encompass overall programming of annual curriculums, summer camps, and bi-annual workshops in piping, drumming, Highland dance and step dance. He will handle the coordination and implementation of all educational programming, business and financial planning, administration and communications and Public relations.

Earlier in the year Karen Hatcher was hired as Executive Director of the College of Piping. Even though it was only officially announced last week, pipes|drums reported on Hatcher’s appointment in March. She has been working at the Summerside institution since then.

MacHattie last year moved from Toronto to Vancouver and plays, along with his wife, Kylie, with the Simon Fraser University Pipe Band. He will reportedly continue to play with SFU in the future. He has been a prominent prize-winner at major solo piping competitions. Before moving to Vancouver he lived in Toronto for more than a decade, playing with the 78th Fraser Highlanders from 2006 to 2009, and before that was Pipe-Major of the Garde 1 Toronto Police, leading the band to North American Championships in 2004 and 2006. He is originally from Saskatchewan, Canada.

The College of Piping is reportedly separating business and education responsibilities. MacAulay’s role handled both aspects of the organization.

Mike Paterson was hired in March 2009 to succeed MacAulay as Executive Director, only to be dismissed from the post a few months later. Paterson was succeeded by Kendra MacGillivray, who resigned after four months.