Haileybury bagpipers and drummers have blown away the competition to be crowned best in the world.
The members of Haileybury Pipes & Drums were among 190 bands and 8000 musicians that descended on Glasgow Green in Scotland for the World Pipe Band Championships.
They came up trumps in the Grade 3B category and beat the reigning UK champions, European champions and Scottish champions to take the prestigious world title – despite more than 24 hours of travelling, jetlag and a bout of food poisoning three days earlier.
“The standard is higher in Scotland than anywhere else in the world and the bands competing at the World Championships are at peak performance,” says Pipes & Drums director Lincoln Hilton.
“In our Grade, 14 bands contested the title from Belgium, Canada, France, Northern Ireland and Scotland.
“When Haileybury was named world champions it in our category it was actually a surreal moment. It felt like a dream.”
Haileybury Pipes & Drums is just one of a handful of Australian bands to win such a world championship.
The win has been two years in the making with the students practising and honing their performance skills for countless hours.
“Every note during the performance had to be played by memory and with precision, but the Haileybury students have sacrificed many, many hours to practice and they were determined to perform at a world-class level,” Hilton said.
Drums captain, Grishma, who is in Year 12, says the world champions are still coming to terms with their huge achievement.
“The opportunity to play at a World Championships, let alone to win, is very rare.
“I did get nervous while we were practicing in Scotland and the easiest way to overcome that was to remember the sheer amount of work the band had put in already.
“After the performance I was just relieved that there hadn’t been any major issues like dropping a stick.
“When the results were announced there was a huge amount of pride and happiness.
“It’s definitely an experience I’ll never forget and something I’ll always be grateful to have been part of. It will be exciting to see where the band goes in the future.”
Pipe corporal, Jessie, who is in Year 10, recalled the feeling after the performance.
“We felt such relief after all the pent-up stress and hard work. Really, it felt like years and years of working towards the one goal.
“We produced a really amazing performance and I’m really proud of that,” she says.
