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A piping and drumming weekend track for kids at Winter School 2025.
Register NowWinter School is a rare opportunity to learn from some of the best players and the most creative instructors of Celtic music, while spending time in community with fellow musicians and music appreciators.
Learn MoreLearn MoreWinter School is an opportunity to learn tunes and technique from some of the best players and the most inspiring instructors of Scottish music, spending time in community with fellow musicians and music appreciators, and just have fun!
The Kids Highland Pipes & Drumming Weekend is a shorter, youth-oriented program at Winter School that will take place concurrently with the Piob and Uilleann Pipes programs. Students arrive on Friday afternoon/evening (January 31st) and the program begins with dinner on Friday night. The weekend will include multiple group classes, individual work, and fun evening gatherings. Classes end on Sunday, February 2nd at noon.
This program is best-suited to kids aged 10-17 years who have some level piping or drumming experience already. Separate classes for different levels will be provided, and class levels will be tailored to the ability level of those that register. Beginners with one year of chanter experience will have a beginner track option. Please contact Cayley@CelticArts.org if you have questions about a student’s level.
Attendees will need to be accompanied by a chaperone, but one chaperone can be responsible for more than one student. Group registration discounts may be available. Please contact Cayley@CelticArts.org for more information.
Housing
Housing at Seabeck Conference Center is in a variety of buildings around campus. Lodging, dining, and classrooms are all walk-able from each other. Each room for this program will have 2-3 beds per room, and shared bathroom facilities.
If you are interested in a different type of housing option (i.e. larger groups staying together, chaperones that want to stay together, etc.), please contact Cayley@CelticArts.org
Pricing
Prices for the Kids Highland Pipes & Drums Weekend include tuition, housing, and meals:
If you are interested in a no-housing option (still includes meals and tuition), please contact Cayley@CelticArts.org
From Inveraray, started piping at the age of nine and was originally taught by his grandfather, the late Pipe Major Ronald McCallum M.B.E. and later, Arthur Gillies. He has also had tuition from Jim Henderson and Hugh MacCallum. For seven years he was a member of the Scottish Power Pipe Band thereafter joining the Simon Fraser University Pipe Band from Vancouver, Canada with whom he played for eleven years. A piano tuner by trade, he is also a piping instructor at Mid Argyll Primary and Lochgilphead High Schools. Stuart is the Founder and Pipe Major of the World Champion Pipe Band, Inveraray and District. He is one of the world’s most exciting pipers and is noted for his excellent solo performances and recordings at numerous Simon Fraser University Pipe Band concerts. His truly brilliant solo performances have inspired many to take up this most difficult of all instruments. Students, young and older have benefited from his incredible ability to motivate and influence their journey and stimulate creativity.
For more than three decades, Jack Lee has been regarded as one of the world’s leading pipers. His accomplishments as a solo piper, pipe band leader, and teacher cause him to be much sought after as a performer, lecturer, and teacher throughout the world. For nearly forty years, Pipe-Sergeant Jack Lee has been ranked among the world’s most accomplished pipers. He has won all the top solo prizes available: The Glenfiddich Championship, Gold Medals at both Oban and Inverness, the Clasp at Inverness (2), the Silver Star at Inverness (4), the Bratach Gorm at London (3) the Open Piobaireachd at Oban (2), the Silver Star at Oban and the Masters Invitational (2). Jack teaches many piping schools and workshops each year as well as numerous private students around the world via Skype.In October 2017, Jack won the coveted Glenfiddich Solo Piping Championship in Blair Atholl, Scotland, considered the top prize in piping. Jack is also the pipe sergeant and co-founder of the Simon Fraser University Pipe Band, which has been a consistent prize-winner at the World Championships in the past 20 years.
Tyler Fry is the recognized world leader in the art of pipe band tenor drumming. By the age of 15, he had won every major professional solo tenor drumming event in North America, including the Canadian, United States, and North American Championships. Tyler is a three-time winner of the Grade 1 World Bass Drum Section Championship with the 78th Fraser Highlanders Pipe Band of Toronto, as well as countless Scottish, British, European, and World band and drum corps titles with Shotts & Dykehead Caledonia Pipe Band under the leadership of the legendary Drum Major Jim Kilpatrick MBE. Tyler travels extensively conducting masterclasses and seminars, and regularly tours with the Red Hot Chili Pipers.
Ali started tenor drumming with the Northwest Junior Pipe Band, based outside Seattle, Washington, in 2007. She joined the Robert Malcolm Memorial grade 3 in 2010, and was with them in 2012 when they won the World Pipe Band Championships, promoting to Grade 2. Ali transitioned full time to bass drumming during the 2017 season with the grade 2 band. In the spring of 2022 she became the understudy to the SFU bass drummer. She made her debut with the band when she stepped in to play all four Worlds circles that summer; helping the drum corps win The Sash. Ali teaches tenor and bass with the Northwest Junior Pipe Band, and runs the midsection program with the Robert Malcolm Memorial Pipe Band. She is the lead nurse of the Internal Medicine Department at a specialty and emergency veterinary hospital in Washington.
Kerr McQuillan is the Leading Drummer for the Peoples Ford Boghall and Bathgate Caledonia Pipe Band. Kerr took over in 2022, and in his first season, led the drum corps to win the World Pipe Band Championships in 2023. Having grown up within the Boghall system, Kerr was taught by Tom Brown MBE, Gordon Brown and Stephen McQuillan. Kerr is also the current - and youngest ever - adult World Solo Drumming Champion, having previously won eight juvenile world titles in both tenor and snare drum from 2012 until 2022. Kerr holds the current record for World Solo tenor successes, even winning both the tenor and snare competition in the same day in 2016. Since his appointment as leading drummer, Kerr has accumulated the titles of 2023 and 2024 Scottish Champion, 2024 European Champion, 2024 Intercontinental Champion, to name a few. These successes, alongside his World Solo win, led to Kerr being named Pipes|Drums Drummer of the Year in 2023. Kerr spends his weekdays teaching at The High School of Glasgow, having recently guided them to their first-place success at the Scottish Schools Pipes and Drums Trust’s Scottish Schools Competition. When he is not teaching, Kerr can be found studying on the BMus Traditional Music course at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. In addition to his pipe band accomplishments, Kerr is a member of the Celtic rock band Drums n' Roses, which has taken him all over the world to perform in some of the most renowned venues, such as Sony Music Hall and Times Square. When not performing, Kerr has toured the world, teaching in places such as Brittany, the US and Spain.