Congratulations to Skye Richendrfer, Director of the Skagit Valley Celtic Arts Foundation in receiving the Governor’s Arts & Heritage Award. The Arts and Heritage Awards recognize individuals and organizations for their significant contributions to the creativity and culture of Washington.
Skye K. Richendrfer, a former piper with Simon Fraser University Pipe Band is the founder of the Celtic Arts Foundation and the Skagit Valley Highland Games, which draws 10,000 attendees annually. His impact in the community is also demonstrated through is work to support the restoration of the historic Lincoln Theatre in downtown Mount Vernon, worked on fundraising to support the McIntyre Hall on the Skagit Valley College campus, and creating the “Celtic Stage” in Mount Vernon’s Edgewater Park.
Skye and the Celtic Arts Foundation have both been long time supporters of Northwest Junior Pipe Band, most recently helping us purchase new drums when the band began experiencing significant growth.
Ok, so it’s not a parable exactly, but it is just about perfect. Forgive the alliteration, I’m working on improving the catchiness of my headlines.
This is one of the best articles about the art, competition, and history of bagpiping in the US that many of us have ever seen. Written by a “former” piper Aaron Jentzen for the Pittshburgh City Paper, it goes into great detail about the Balmoral Classic and the concert where two NWJPB instructors travelled to catch the St. Lawrence O’Toole Pipe Band perform last November.
We highly recommend the article, and encourage you to share it as well. The US is seeing a notable increase in the popularity and talent of bagpiping and Scottish drumming. Kudos to the Pitssburgh City Paper for publishing such a high quality article, with very few of the usual factual errors, jokes about bagpipes or other mistakes we often see in stories about the art of bagpiping.
One quote I really like, which sort of summarizes my experience with piping…I didn’t know anything about it 4 years ago, and didn’t “hate” pipes, but I know I hadn’t been exposed to much “great” piping…so I didn’t have any real appreciation for the talent that surrounds us:
“I’m willing to admit that everybody in the entire world can be divided up — not evenly — into those who love the bagpipes and those who hate the bagpipes,” [George] Balderose [one of the Balmoral Classic organizers] says.
Still, he adds, “I’d like to think that those who hate the bagpipes hate them because they were played badly.”
