Perseverance and passion: pipes|drums chats with Sons of Holyland L-D Eddy Bathish

As long as there has been piping and drumming, the art has always endured, even risen above, during wartime.

The Grade 4 Sons of Holyland & District of Nazareth’s members are persevering through the conflict and hardship that’s escalated over the last few weeks, which all hope can be resolved soon.

Eddy Bathish is the band’s founder, director and leading-drummer, which has recently expanded to include a beginner organization, the overall group known as the Sons of Holyland Association. The pipe-major of the Grade 4 band is Rosol Eddine.

Piping and drumming will forever be connected with Scotland, there is no doubt. But the art itself is becoming less and less “ethnic,” welcoming people of any nationality, religion, sexual orientation, and political belief more than ever before.

Perhaps nowhere is that more evident than with Sons of Holyland, which is on a mission to expand to “hundreds” of new pipers and drummers in the Nazareth area.

We wanted to know a little about what this group is all about. In our brief discussion with Bathish, he discusses the passion they have for the music and how, after two years of travelling to Scotland to compete, investing from 200,000 to 300,000 shekels (about $75,000 to $100,000) to travel and stay there, they’re “Learning how to play the game” of competition pipe banding.

Their story is remarkable and compelling and a reminder of just how much piping and drumming can mean to people in often the most unlikely places, even at the most challenging times.

We hope you enjoy our discussion with Eddy Bathish of Sons of Holyland & District, Nazareth.

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