Pipers Hope to Bag Big Win : Local Band Will Be Among 42 Competing for World Championship in Scotland

Members of the Los Angeles Scottish Pipe Band are pumped up to travel to Scotland next week with only one goal in mind: to win the world pipe band championships.

“It’s a dream of any piper or drummer who has played in a band to take first place,” said piper Andrew Ross, 32, a native of Scotland and now a Stanton resident.

To that end, the Orange County-based band will leave Wednesday, first to compete in the Irish pipe band championships Saturday in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Then on Aug. 17, they will vie for the world championship title in Glasgow, Scotland.

“We’re going just to win,” said Ross, whose father, Andrew, 53, of Lake Forest, is also a piper in the band and taught him how to play when he was 8.

For a United States band to nab first place, the younger Ross mused, would heighten the L.A. Scots’ standing in the international bagpipe community.

“We would prove ourselves. . . . We’d show that we’re not a bunch of fools who play the bagpipes,” he said.

“It would be a coup,” said piper Julie MacDonald, 35, whose husband, Don, 42, plays the snare drum, slung over his side. “It would show that Scottish music and heritage is doing well over here.”

Don MacDonald of Huntington Beach likened the competition to a “musical sporting event.”

“It’s very competitive,” he said. “Once it’s in your blood, there’s a desire to go out and compete and win.”

This will be the third consecutive year that the 33-member band, made up of 20 bagpipers and 13 drummers, will compete for the world title, said Scott MacDonald, Don’s brother and the band’s pipe major. Their Scottish father, Ian, now deceased, was one of the founding members of the band 35 years ago. Another brother, Bruce MacDonald, 40, of Whittier, and 16-year-old nephew, Colin Armstrong, of Carlsbad, are also in the band.

Scott MacDonald said 42 bands are expected to compete, including three other U.S. ensembles from Chicago, Washington D.C. and Detroit. Many of the contending bands are from Scotland, Ireland and Canada.

In 1994, the L.A. Scots placed fourth in the world championships and last year tied for first with a Scottish band. The judges ended up awarding the Scottish band the world title because it ranked higher on ensemble performance, Scott MacDonald said.

It was the first time an American band had placed that high in the competition, added MacDonald, 34, a Laguna Niguel resident.

This year, MacDonald said, his pipe band is considered to be one of the favorites to win the world title.

“We have another year of experience in world-class competition and we know what to expect, so we’re better prepared,” he said.

MacDonald, who became band leader in 1990, said that it will cost $35,000 for the band to travel abroad for the competitions. The money was collected through fund-raisers and corporate sponsorships.

While the first-place prize money is a modest 200 pounds, or about $325, band members said the expense is worth it just to compete, and they hope, to come home the world champs.

“You do it for the love of the pipes, not for the love of money,” Scott MacDonald said.

Throughout the year the band--with most of the members Orange County residents--travels to perform and compete nationally and internationally. For that reason members have kept their “L.A. Scots” name.

“It’s a more recognizable name since we are a traveling band,” MacDonald said.

To prepare for competitions, members practice individually and the band meets two to three times a week in Huntington Central Park and at a parking lot in a Fountain Valley industrial area to hone their music.

Many of the pipers play pipes 80 to 100 years old, their instruments trimmed in ivory and hand-engraved silver. They learned to play the instrument as children.

“To get to the level we are, most of us started at a very young age,” said MacDonald, whose father taught him when he was 8. “It’s a difficult instrument to excel at at a later age.

“For me, I had a good feel for the music, and I was blessed with a good set of hands and cast-iron lungs.”

Although the bagpipe is closely identified with Scotland, not all L.A. Scots members have Scottish ancestry. Some have Irish, English and even Latino backgrounds.

What they all have in common, MacDonald said, is “they love the sound of bagpipes.”