PipeBand Profile

Fort Collins Pipe Band - PipeBand, Colorado, United States

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Fort Collins Pipe Band

The Fort Collins Pipe Band is a quality performance and competition band.
Currently, the band consists of 30-performance piper and 19 drummers, including highland snare, bass and tenor. These bands actively recruit new membership and strive to provide quality instruction in Highland bagpiping and drumming. We accept all skill levels in this instruction and it is our goal to bring new members into the band regardless of prior musical experience. The Fort Collins Pipe Band was formed as an entry level grade IV pipe and drum corps in 1981. The McCreery family from Loveland, Colorado was instrumental in assisting the band by providing a two-year interest free loan for the purchase of drums and equipment. The band was so successful that it repaid the loan in its first year. Proudly wearing the weathered Douglas tartan, the band has enjoyed many successes in its relatively short, competitive history. As a grade IV band, the FCPB won its first Rocky Mountain Championship at the Long's Peak Highland Festival in 1991. Since that time, under the direction of Pipe Major Chuck Crowley and Drum Sergeant Darren Marshall, the band has been crowned Rocky Mountain Champions in 1996, 1997, 1999, and 2000. In fact, the competition band was so successful in 1999 that it won its first Western United States Pipe Band Association (3WUSPBA) Championship trophy in October of 1999. That championship year of 1999 also included such prestigious awards as the Grade IV Championship in Pleasanton, California, the largest highland games in North America boasting an average field of over forty pipe bands from the U.S., Scotland, and Canada, as well as an attendance of over 75,000 spectators. Because of its top place aggregate finish in 1999, the band moved up a grade level and competed in grade III competition in the 2000 competition season. In only its first year in grade III, the FCPB placed third in the overall WUSPBA points standings for the 2000 competition season, and is poised to significantly improve that mark in the 2001 season. The success of the band has given it a regional reputation for quality, and it now contains pipers and drummers from as far away as Cheyenne, Wyoming to the North, and Highlands Ranch, Colorado to the South. In the formative year of 1981, the entire band, including all pipers and all drummers, totaled not more than eight to ten people. Since that time, however, the band has grown substantially, now fielding over forty auditioned and uniformed members! Nor does that number include the dozens of piping and drumming students the band constantly recruits and instructs. That growth, representative of a strong commitment to education in fostering the Celtic and related arts, has led several community organizations to recognize the band for excellence. Community patrons such as Fort Fund and the Stryker/Short foundation have donated thousands of dollars in the last few years to support the Fort Collins Pipe Band in its continual effort to maintain the quality and integrity of the Celtic arts and culture.

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Pipebands - America - Colorado
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Fort Collins Pipe Band