Bound for glory: National Youth Pipe Band of New Zealand launches recording

The National Youth Pipe Band of New Zealand is probably the world’s most established programs for young pipers and drummers run by a piping and drumming association.

Started in the early 1990s, the Royal New Zealand Pipe Bands’ Association manages a group comprising many of the most talented pipers and drummers aged 23 and younger. The group is now releasing Bound By Sound, a 10-track recording that will soon be available starting Sunday, April 26th, on the major music streaming platforms.

Hot on the heels of the 2026 New Zealand Pipe Band Championships and a full antipodean summer of pipe band and solo competitions, Bound By Sound is emblematic of the commitment and charisma that permeate the Kiwi piping and drumming scene.

We checked in recently with three people directly involved with Bound By Sound: Seumas Eade, a top-flight solo piper and member of Grade 1 Manawatu Scottish; Stuart Easton, National Youth Pipe Band of New Zealand director and a world-class competing solo piper with a Highland Society of London Gold Medal (Oban, 2018) under his waistbelt; and Manawatu Scottish bass drummer and Royal New Zealand Pipe Bands’ Association board member Stu McHale.

We wanted to know more about how the band works, inside details about Bound By Sound, and just what makes New Zealand pipers and drummers so energized to succeed.

For those who also like to read, here’s the discussion text, with minor edits for clarity.

pipes|drums: We’re connecting with some good friends in New Zealand from the Royal New Zealand Pipe Bands Association. We’ve got Stu McHale, who’s a board member, Stu Easton, who people will recognize as a Highland Society of London Gold Medallist, and he’s the Director of the National Youth Pipe Band of New Zealand, and Seamus Eade, a member of the Youth Pipe Band of New Zealand and an up-and-coming rocketing right up the charts soloist too, who has joined us. They’ve kindly taken part of their Saturday morning and to talk about the Youth Pipe Band, and also exciting news, the release of a new recording Bound By Sound, which will be available soon on all the major platforms.

Before we go into more detail about the recording and listening to a little bit of it, let’s talk about the National Youth Pipe Band of New Zealand. Stu McHale, how does the National Youth Pipe Band of New Zealand work?

Stu McHale: Thanks, it’s one of the flagship features of RNZPBA. Education is key. And the Youth Band is an onboarding platform for getting and promoting our youth, both locally and nationally. We run under three objectives, really, which are to develop our young talent, and to build them in the community so they’re interacting from the top of the north to the bottom of the south, and to get them exposed and in front of members of the public by creating cool music that’s a bit different, maybe not your traditional competition stuff but to evolving different instruments and engage with different parts of our wider community.

The Youth Band’s been going on and off since around the early 1990s. In fact, Seamus’s dad was a member of that youth band in the ’90s. We’ve had different iterations over the years. This is another new iteration, which Stu Easton has kindly agreed to come in and lead. He’s now heading into his second year. This is particularly exciting for us to have an album up and going. It shows what rewards you can get.

pipes|drums: People might be familiar with the National Youth Pipe Band of Scotland, which the National Piping Center launched about 20 years ago, but what are the objectives of the National Youth Pipe Band of New Zealand?

Stu McHale: Quite simply, it’s about developing our players, high-quality players, giving them high-quality tuition. Again, building that national community and giving them the opportunities to develop and showcase what they do.

pipes|drums: What about the age? Is there a minimum age and a maximum age?

Stuart Easton: The minimum age is usually about 15, and the maximum age is 23. But in saying that, if we have any outstanding kids outside of a bit younger, perhaps we will consider them.

“It’s not Field Marshal Montgomery, it’s not Inveraray & District, it’s the National Youth Pipe Band. These are kids from 15 to 23, but what they’ve achieved is absolutely massive. I hope everyone really enjoys it when they listen.” – Stu Easton

pipes|drums: And the quality is pretty terrific on Bound By Sound. People will be impressed. But is it with an eye to being competitively brilliant, or is it just to entertain?

Stuart Easton: We’re a non-competing band. The project was about capturing a snapshot of our incredible youth pipe band talent at the moment. And for the listener, it’s really important that, when you listen to the album, it’s not Field Marshal Montgomery, it’s not Inveraray & District, it’s the National Youth Pipe Band. These are kids from 15 to 23, but what they’ve achieved is absolutely massive. It’s really outstanding. I hope everyone really enjoys it when they listen.

pipes|drums: Is it an annual audition process like Scotland has?

Stuart Easton: Yeah, everyone would audition each year in the first couple of months. We ask the applicants to submit a march, strathspey & reel and a hornpipe & jig. We’re getting big numbers in, which is fantastic, and we’re selecting a very high-quality team. We’re keeping the numbers pretty tight. This year we decided on 20 pipers, 10 snares, four tenors and a bass. A high-quality team and exceptional talent.

pipes|drums: From the recording, I would think it’d be an upper-grade band if they were competing. Let’s talk about Bound By Sound and the recording itself. Seamus, maybe you can tell the story.

Seumas Eade: From what I recall, we got the letters of acceptance around late-April, maybe early-May, and then Stu Easton and Scott Birrell set up a new system unlike previously, where instead of all the pipers and drummers going to one location, we all had separate pods around New Zealand and each of the tutors went around to the pods to make it a little bit easier and a bit cheaper on everyone to be able to get to the practice.

We had, I think, two pod practices and one full band practice in October before recording, before coming together in late November to do the full recording in, I think, two days . . . two-and-a-bit days. It was a very time-crunched but very good experience for everyone.

pipes|drums: You had one practice before you made the album?!

Seumas Eade: One full band practice as a whole.

pipes|drums: That’s quite amazing. I think people will agree once they hear a little bit of it. Speaking of that, maybe go around for everyone’s favourite tracks on Bound By Sound. Stu McHale?

Stu McHale: I have lots of favourites, and as they were starting to come through, I was sitting with Gary Potter, who is the producer of this album. He’s also a leading-drummer here in Grade 1 and a fully qualified sound engineer, so he understands how everything comes together. He was with us up in Palmerston North when we were recording. As these tracks were being built, I was hearing more of some than of others.

We spent a lot of time working to pull together the piobaireachd, “MacIntosh’s Lament.” It’s quite a long track, but it involves the cello played by Reilly Blennerhassett, a young guy down here in Auckland. The introduction of the cello with pipes was pretty moving. And then bringing Seamus’s sister, Ishbel, singing the canntaireachd. That was impressive. I’m not a piobaireachd guy, but it was beautiful to have all of that come together.

pipes|drums: Stu Easton, what about you?

Stuart Easton: There are a few. In terms of one that’s pulling the heartstrings, it’s “McLeod’s Oran Mor” for me. Ishbel Eade does a superb job singing the Gaelic song with the keys and then with the pipe corps coming in with a very good sound. For me, that’s probably my favourite track.

pipes|drums: And Seamus, you actually played on it, so what’s your standout track?

Seumas Eade: Well, both “MacLeod’s Oran Mor” and “MacIntosh’s Lament” were very fun to play. And, obviously, with Ishbel on both sides, Reilly Blennerhassett is also my cousin. It was a big family affair. I’ve always liked faster-paced tunes, so the “Reel Time” set is definitely more of a fun one to play, with the bongo at the start and the backing band as well as the pipe band.

Playing in a lot of concerts recently, I always love to have a bit more than the pipe band. It’s always nice to incorporate other instruments because lots of people don’t really know that you can incorporate other instruments into pipe bands. If you do it right, it sounds really good. So that’s what I really like about the “Reel Time” set.

pipes|drums: Well, let’s pull up the track to have a listen. It’s about two minutes long:

pipes|drums: That’s fantastic. Neil Dickie’s “Clumsy Lover” to finish it off, with great orchestration and arrangement. Maybe bongos will be introduced at the World Championships soon. Seamus, talk about that, the track, and it’s incredible that you had one band practice and you guys could pull that off.

Seumas Eade: I think we came in one evening just to get a last sound check in before the next two recording days. And there was pretty much just recording after recording, just doing it again and trying to get it perfect. By the end of the first day, people were a bit tired. We got some good recordings down, but we thought we could get a bit better, so the next morning, we chose a select number of pipers to bash out four tracks one after the other, which helped us get the best quality sound for those tracks. It was a long process, but I think it was done really well.

pipes|drums: Who does most of the arranging? Stuart Easton, are you involved?

Stuart Easton: I arranged all the piping tracks. The album’s really tasteful, I think. We needed to consider an album that would still be popular in 20, 30 years’ time. We put a lot of thought into the tunes, and I think they’re timeless. I think they’ll still be very cool in a long time. A lot of the arrangements are from medleys I’ve played in the past for various recitals and things. It was quite cool to put those together into a pipe band situation. I know the kids enjoyed playing some of those arrangements.

As for the backing, Scott and Hayden Lam, our backing drum kit player, had a lot of fun. We gave them free license to go nuts and enjoy.

pipes|drums: I’ve been dying to talk to someone about this: Is there something in the water in New Zealand that makes Kiwi pipers and drummers so committed and willing to travel to Scotland to commit all this time and money towards their art? It just seems like such a positive and energetic scene.

Stu McHale: Yeah, we always say, “It’s a renaissance.” We’ve come off the back of our National Championships, and there is an ever-increasing number of youth coming through, which is exciting because it feeds into the fact that we might be losing some of our baby boomers popping off the other end, even though they’re still holding strong. My dad’s 78 and still playing. He just won with the Rotorua Pipe Band at Nationals.

“We’re quite New Zealand-proud. We’ll have bands head over to Scotland, if not every year, every second year. It’s a big cost, about $200,000, which is about £100,000, to take 40 people over.” – Stu McHale

There’s that big community in Scotland, Canada, the US, Australia, but it feels bigger in New Zealand because we’re much more compressed. We want to keep promoting it more and getting more people involved. In terms of how we’d like to take that internationally, we’re quite New Zealand-proud. We’ll have bands head over to Scotland, if not every year, every second year. It’s a big cost, about $200,000, which is about £100,000, to take 40 people over. But then we’ve got a whole soloist scene, in which Stu and Seamus’s family are heading over there religiously to compete. And we might have a cohort of 10 or so soloists doing the rounds over there. And then we’ve got a bunch of Kiwis who are actually living in Scotland at the moment as part of the overseas experience.

pipes|drums: Stu Easton and Seamus Eade, you’ll be heading over in August for the major gatherings and, you know, working it that way as well.

Stuart Easton: Yeah, absolutely. Looking forward to getting back across in August for Oban and Inverness, and also another trip to Lorient at the end of July, start of August. So, I take two trips back home for two weeks, then back across. So crazy, but we love what we do. We’ve just got to suck it up and do it.

pipes|drums: Well, the New Zealand scene is an inspiration. The kind of things that are going on there are amazing. And it seems like everyone has a good time doing it, too, which we need a lot more of that in the pipe band world. So, guys, congratulations on Bound By Sound, coming out soon. It’s another inspirational moment of piping and drumming from people around the world, including New Zealand.

All: Thanks so much.

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