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Pipers descend on Killington

BC Childress (left), of Maine, plays the Uilleann pipes, and Arvo Doughty, of Brooklyn, N.Y., plays the flute at The Pipers’ Gathering at Snowshed Lodge in Killington on Sunday. Cassandra Hotaling / Rutland Herald

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KILLINGTON — From England and Australia to Stockbridge and Ripton, bagpipe players from around the state and the world, united this past weekend to share their love for the sometimes-maligned and often-misunderstood instrument.

About 150 people brought their pipes to the Snowshed Lodge at the Killington Grand Hotel for The Pipers' Gathering, which during several different incarnations has drawn players to Vermont for 25 years. For the casual visitor expecting knobby-kneed Scotsmen in tartan, the event is a bit of an eye-opener.

"The last country in world to receive bagpipes was Scotland," said Gathering Director Richard Shuttleworth of Phillipsburg, Quebec, Canada. The instrument dates back more than 5,000 years to ancient Mesopotamia and had spread across nearly all of Europe and Asia before reaching Scotland. Queen Victoria loved Highland bagpipes and ordered their use during British military functions, cementing the association between Scotland and the instrument, but the Highland bagpipes is just one of many types on display during the convention.

"They're the largest group, but we get a lot of escapees from that world," Shuttleworth said of the Highland pipers.

One of those escapees is Rick Damon of Newbury, who has been attending the Gatherings for the last 18 years. Like many, he started on the Highland pipes, "but the ones I fell in love with 15 years ago were the Northumbrian Pipes."

While the Highland pipes have a limited nine-note range, Northumbrian pipes have a full two-octave range that blends well with violins, guitars and flutes. Damon plays in a group called the Rad Pipers with Dawn Littlepage of Montpelier.

"When I was a child, I was on vacation in Banff (Alberta, Canada) and I heard this piper play at dusk," Littlepage said, recalling her first encounter with the instrument. "Years later I'm in Vermont and I see pipers in a parade and I thought, 'I can do that.'"

All musical instruments have a steep learning curve, and that certainly includes the bagpipes. The bag — which is attached to variable number of cylinders with holes called chanters — is tucked under one elbow and attached with a belt to the player's torso. Under the other elbow is a bellows with a hose connecting to the bag, and the player has to pump air from the bellows into the bag and force air from the bag through the chanters, covering and uncovering holes on the chanter to make different notes. It's a lot of simultaneous motions to keep straight.

"There's an Irish piper saying: It takes 21 years to become a good bagpipe player," Shuttleworth said. "Seven years of listening, seven years of practicing and seven years of playing."

While their days end with afternoon lectures and evening concerts, pipers begin with classes in the morning, and perhaps nobody is more qualified to teach the Northumbrian pipes than Chris Ormston of Northumberland, England, considered the place of origin for the instrument.

"I think it's quite challenging coming here because people want to know everything about it, where people back home kind of take things for granted," Ormston said, while noting that the Pipers' Gathering is unusual because it includes so many different types of pipes. "I guess this reflects America as a melting pot."

Whether it's English, Irish or Scottish pipes, convention visitors find the tone — and the drone — they are looking for. Or, perhaps the right instrument finds them.

"I guess it's just the love of a particular instrument — something just reaches out and grabs you," Shuttleworth said.

josh.ogorman@rutlandherald.com