Piping Centre and College of Piping getting together

The College of Piping & Celtic Performing Arts of Canada is making news again, this time announcing a collaboration with the National Piping Centre on a week-long sumer school in July 2015 in Summerside, Prince Edward Island.

It marks the first time that two major organizations dedicated to teaching piping have combined. The school will run from July 5th through 10th, with piping, drumming and pipe band classes and workshops on offer. According to organizers, pipe band workshops will probably be customized according to the needs of interested bands.

“Ever since I started here at the College I’ve been wondering about a collaboration, and Karen Hatcher and I threw around the idea from time to time,” said James MacHattie, Music Director at the College. “In August we sat down with [National Piping Centre Director] Roddy MacLeod in Glasgow to see if we could make a partnership work. He was very open to the idea, and we’ve struck an agreement to join forces and run a school jointly.”

Several National Piping Centre instructors will come to Summerside to join with College of Piping staff.

“I’m pretty excited for this,” MacHattie continued. “I love the idea of two organizations committed to instruction getting together, supporting each other and presenting a strong combined product.”

The College of Piping & Celtic Performing Arts of Canada was started in 1990. Among other early achievements under its first director, the late Scott MacAulay, the college had the foresight to secure the URL www.collegeofpiping.com at the start of the Internet boom, despite the College of Piping in Glasgow having been around since 1947.

The National Piping Centre has held several summer schools in the United States, but none so far in Canada.