2025 Balmoral Classic Concert

Pittsburgh’s Balmoral School of Piping & Drumming is proud to present the Carnegie Mellon University Pipes and Drums for the 2025 Balmoral Classic Concert! Performing live onstage beginning at 7:30pm, Saturday, Nov. 15, at the Carnegie Library Lecture Hall, 4400 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15213.

Tickets may be purchased online at showclix.com: https://www.showclix.com/event/cmupipes-classic-concert

Come to surround yourself in the full sound of a top notch pipe band, Carnegie Mellon University Pipes and Drums. Take in a powerful and harmonious experience as they play marches, slow airs, dance music (strathspeys, reels, jigs), and ensemble pieces with Bealtaine and guest dancers.

Director Andrew Carlisle leads the Carnegie Mellon University Pipes and Drums, which is made up entirely of current university students and alumni. Carlisle, the professor in charge of the bagpipe major in the University's School of Music, is a professional solo competitive bagpiper with many significant wins of prizes across Europe and North America. He also played for many years as a member of the Field Marshall Montgomery Pipe Band, of Belfast, during which time he won dozens of championship events at the Grade 1 Pipe Band level, including multiple World Pipe Band Championship titles.

As Andrew Carlisle remarked, "The Great Highland Bagpipe is one of the most challenging instruments and also one of the most temperamental. The repertoire is extremely diverse. .. compositions can be more than 500 years old, to contemporary virtuosic pieces."

The band performs frequently at official University events and occasionally for local concerts, the most notable among the latter being their annual Saint Patrick’s Day-proximate “Celtic Connections” tour with the River City Brass. In 2012 the band was invited to perform as the Guest Band at the New Hampshire Highland Games held at the Loon Mountain Ski Resort where the band performed to over 25,000 spectators and also at the world famous “Celtic Classic” festival in Bethlehem, PA where crowds of over 200,000 lined the streets.

The band also travels a limited tour of the United States competition circuit where it consistently wins events at the Grade III level, including wins most recently at the 2024 Celtic Classic (Bethlehem, PA), the 2025 Chicago Highland Games, and the 2025 American Pipe Band Championships in Norfolk; Carnegie Mellon has won the overall award for best Grade 3 band at the American Pipe Band Championships every year since the event returned in 2022. In August 2025, returning from their first foray across the Atlantic into the Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association’s competition arena, the band took 2nd and 5th place wins, respectively, in the European and World Pipe Band Championships. The drum corps, under Drum Sergeant, Miles Bennington, secured first place for drumming in their competition group at the European Pipe Band Championships.

According to their Office of the Dean of Students, “bagpiping has been an integral part of the campus life at Carnegie Mellon University since 1939” but the tradition actually hails back much further to Andrew Carnegie, of Dunfermline, Scottish birth, who famously maintained a bagpiper on his payroll. The Kiltie Band was started by Lewis W. Davidson and each year students who were interested in learning to play the bagpipes could enroll.

"The entire tradition of the campus has been celebratory bagpiping… What Carnegie Mellon offers is a program of study where a person can get a complete grounding in music as well as specific instruction on the instrument" (Thomas, M.T. 1991). In 1991, under the direction of James H. McIntosh MBE, a world renowned piper, a program was officially established as part of the School of Music. Prior to this program, no opportunities existed anywhere in the world for the serious student to study bagpiping at a bachelor’s degree level, and the program has since been expanded to include graduate-level study, with students of the bagpipe now able to pursue a Master of Music Performance.

Past Classic Concerts

Seven Nations in 2022's Classic Concert

Equally at home in front of 40,000 cheering fans at an international festival, with widely recognized, Grammy award-winning symphony orchestras, or with 300 fans in a small Midwest club, Seven Nations has created a truly hybrid sound and transient live show. The depth and complexity of their music is astounding, each listen reveals a deeper layer of intricacy that has been embraced by an ever growing audience. "We are lucky," says McLeod, "because we come from two unique cultures. We love American pop and rock and roll, but we also love our Celtic roots. We want to touch everybody with our music," he continues, "and so far, we have been very, very fortunate."

Fraser and Haas in 2021's Classic Concert

The musical partnership between consummate performer Alasdair Fraser, "the Michael Jordan of Scottish fiddling", and brilliant Californian cellist Natalie Haas spans the full spectrum between intimate chamber music and ecstatic dance energy. Over the last 20 years of creating a buzz at festivals and concert halls across the world, they have truly set the standard for fiddle and cello in traditional music. They continue to thrill audiences internationally with their virtuosic playing, their near-telepathic understanding and the joyful spontaneity and sheer physical presence of their music.

Eabhal in 2019's Classic Concert

Eabhal came together while based on the Isle of South Uist in the Scottish Outer Hebrides. Playing traditional music the band draws inspiration from many different cultures. Eabhal were recently named Hands up for Trad, Battle of the Folk Bands 2018 winners at Edinburgh Tradfest. Having toured throughout Europe, the band has just released their debut album This is How the Ladies Dance.
'Full of energy and bold ideas but firmly grounded in the Scottish & Gaelic tradition, Eabhal are one of Scotland's brightest up and coming bands that continue to evolve our music.'
- Angus Lyon (Blazin’ Fiddles)

Nuallan in 2018's Classic Concert

Comprised of three renowned Cape Breton pipers—Keith MacDonald, Kenneth MacKenzie, and Kevin Dugas—Nuallan explores a style of piping, brought to Cape Breton by Highland Gaels, that has continued to develop on the island over the past 200 years. Nuallan's members are well-known individually for their rhythmic, musical playing. Their music is dance-oriented, the most common tunes being strathspeys, reels and jigs. The band plays both Highland and lowland pipes and were joined onstage by keyboard & fiddle, as well as Irish, Scottish & Cape Breton-style dancers.

Fraser and Haas in 2017's Classic Concert

" … you would think they'd been playing together for centuries. While his fiddle dances, her cello throbs darkly or plucks puckishly. Then [Haas] opens her cello's throat, joining Fraser in soaring sustains, windswept refrains, and sudden, jazzy explosions. Their sound is as urbane as a Manhattan midnight, and as wild as a Clackmannan winter." — Boston Globe

"Fraser, one of the most respected of all exponents of the Scots fiddle, would look long and hard to find a more appropriate cellist as a partner...A positive joy." — The Scotsman

Toronto Police Pipe Band in 2016's Classic Concert

The Toronto Police Pipe Band made last year's 2016 Classic Concert an evening to remember! The TPPB is a grade one pipe band based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The band performs at parades, festivals, ceremonies and funerals, and participates internationally in piping competitions.

As ambassadors of both the Toronto Police Service and the City of Toronto, the band is dedicated to playing good music well and to help bring the ancient sounds of the pipes and drums to citizens of Toronto – and the world.

To keep the music playing, consider donating to Balmoral!