The pipes are calling – and winning praise. The Simon Fraser University Pipe Band won the world pipe band title, its second straight, in Scotland in mid-August. It’s the sixth win overall for the 45-member band, which won earlier world titles in 1995, 1996, 1999, 2001 and 2008.
“We feel absolutely fantastic to have repeated this year,” says SFU Pipe Major Terry Lee of Coquitlam, B.C. “We worked hard to do a little bit better, and we did.”
The perennially popular band played a sold-out concert at the Royal Glasgow Concert Hall prior to the competition. Even the standing-room-only tickets were sold out – a rare achievement.
In all, 220 bands and some 8,000 musicians competed in the event, in a typically Scottish mix of rain, cloud, sun and blustery wind on a soggy Glasgow Green.
Back home, the band regularly participates in university convocation ceremonies, corporate events, Remembrance Day ceremonies and other civic events in the Vancouver area. The band has performed twice for Queen Elizabeth and opened for rock star Rod Stewart at two Vancouver concerts.