LOCAL WIND BLOWING IN SCOTLAND

Ensemble competes in World Pipe Band Championships, 'the Olympics of the bagpipe world'

Athletes are gathered in Rio for the Olympics ... and blowers are blowing in Scotland to be the world’s best.

“There is nothing like the World Pipe Band Championships,” says Julie Piper Finley, a team manager — who possesses an appropriate name — with the Portland Metro Pipe Band, which will compete for the third time in Scotland. “It is the Olympics of the bagpipe world — more than 250 bands and 60,000 spectators.

“Winning a spot in the top 12 of your division puts you into a rarified world of the best bands anywhere.”

That’s the goal for the Portland band, which features drummers and pipers from Oregon, Washington, New Mexico and British Columbia. Metro Pipe has been around since 2006, and it has competed at worlds two other times, 2012 and 2014. There are 16 pipers, seven snare drummers, four tenor drummers — the ones who flourish the fuzzy mallets — and one bass drummer.

The band is led by Pipe Major Mark Tomasetti and Drum Sergeant Andrew Finley. It has played with the legendary Irish band The Chieftains, has been a regular at the Portland Highland Games and been a regular prize winner at competitions in the Pacific Northwest, Canada and Scotland.

“Competition in the western U.S. and Canada is fairly limited, but at the worlds we compete against 30 of the best bands in our grade in the world,” Finley says. “Only one or two other U.S. bands make it to this level.”

The Portland band practices once a week during the winter and twice a week beginning in May at Portland International Raceway. Two years ago, the band won a competition at the North Berwick International Highland Games before worlds, and planned to participate at North Berwick and Bridge of Allan competitions in Scotland this year before the championships in Glasgow, Aug. 12-13.

The worlds entail timed playing, and bands are required to play an MSR — March, Strathspey & Reel — as well as a six-minute medley that incorporates styles such as slow air, march, hornpipe, jig, etc.

“Most of the tunes we play will be familiar only to other pipers,” Finley says. “The highland pipes is music of the Scottish soul; the haunting tunes tell of long-ago war and strife, of love lost and found, of struggle and triumph. For those of us with a Scottish heritage, it is the music of our ancestors.

“That being said, our pipe major’s last name is Tomasetti! But his mother’s family is from Scotland.”

For more on Portland Metro Pipe Band, see its website at www.pmpb.org. For more on the World Pipe Band Championships, see its website at www.theworlds.co.uk.