Piping Centre Moves In To U.S. With Summer School

The National Piping Centre has announced that it will hold its first ever summer school in North America with a one week program at Shenandoah University in Winchester, Virginia, June 22 to 27 of this year.

“Piping & Drumming USA” is believed to be the first new North American summer school by a Scottish piping organization since Seumas MacNeill and Glasgow’s College of Piping started its California schools in the 1960s.

Instructors at the school will be Roddy MacLeod, principal of the National Piping Centre; Major Gavin Stoddart BEM; Chris Armstrong, Bathgate, Scotland; and Chris Hamilton, Maryland. Drumming teachers are Barry Wilson, Glasgow, and Gavin Lindsay, a tenor drummer with the City of Washington Pipe Band.

The first organized summer school outside of Scotland was Nova Scotia’s Gaelic College, started in the 1950s. Summer school programs in North America during the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s have been cited by many as being instrumental in building piping and drumming prowess in North America.

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