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The Simon Fraser University Pipe Band, five times world champion, is off to Glasgow, Scotland, to seek its sixth world title.

It competes in the Grade 1 division at the World Pipe Band Championships on Glasgow Green on Saturday Aug. 15.

And before that comes a sold-out concert on Aug. 12 at the Royal Glasgow Concert Hall. Even the standing-room-only tickets are sold out—a rare achievement.

Also off to Scotland, to compete in the junior Grade 3 class, is the SFU Pipe Band’s “farm team”—the Robert Malcolm Memorial Pipe Band.  (It is named for Robert Barbulak and Malcolm Bokenfohr, two members of the SFU Pipe Band who died in an automobile accident in 1993.)

In all, the “Worlds” draws 200 bands from 16 nations, with 8,000 pipers and drummers, and a good 45,000 spectators.

The BBC will livecast the finals on the web via http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/music/worlds/2009/
The livecast starts at 1 a.m. Pacific on Saturday Aug. 15.

Pipe Sergeant Jack Lee of Surrey, who has been with the SFU Pipe Band for 32 years, says: “I always look forward to playing at the Worlds—but never more than this year.  Going in as defending champions and taking our Robert Malcolm Memorial juvenile band over gives us plenty of added incentive.”

Lead drummer Reid Maxwell of Coquitlam, a 17-year member and a world-champion drummer in his own right, knows from life in Scotland something to expect:  “I’m looking forward to being in Scotland and getting some of that cold summer practice weather."

A new member of the band, piper Myles Stewart of Vancouver, says: “This is not my first trip to the Worlds—but it’s by far my most important one."

The SFU band, led by Pipe Major Terry Lee of Coquitlam (Jack’s brother), nailed its fifth title at the 2008 championships in Glasgow by winning the Medley event and the World Drum Corps Championship, and placing second in the March, Strathspey and Reel event.

For 14 years, SFU has battled for the title with the Field Marshal Montgomery Band from Northern Ireland and with Scotland’s House of Edgar Shotts & Dykehead band.

SFU won the title in 1995, 1996, 1999, 2001 and 2008.  Last year, the Montgomery band placed second and Shotts & Dykehead third. In all, the Montgomery Band has won six crowns, and the Shotts & Dykehead band 15 titles.

The SFU band has members from B.C., Alberta, Scotland, Ireland, France and the U.S.

In a warm-up for Scotland, the SFU band won the Grade 1 crown in two events at the Pacific Northwest Scottish Highland Games and Clan Gathering at Enumclaw, Washington on July 25.

[Editors: Band members from B.C. are from Abbotsford, Burnaby, Coquitlam, Langley, New Westminster, North Vancouver, Penticton, Port Coquitlam, Surrey, Vancouver and Vernon. If you’d like names and contact info for them, please e-mail donmac@sfu.ca. Still photos of the band in action are available on request, but we generally lack identifying info for the individuals in them.]

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