2024! We performed all over the world this year - from the Western US to rainy Scotland - and we worked harder than we ever had, which most certainly paid off! Let’s take a quick trip down memory lane, shall we?
JANUARY, FEBRUARY
In January many of our band members attended Winter Storm, an annual event held in Kansas City, Missouri. Winter Storm is a combination of many things - it’s one of the biggest solo piping and drumming competitions of the year AND it’s a workshop weekend facilitated by some of the biggest legends in the pipe band world. On top of that, there are many live performances and a ceilidh (Pronounced KAY-LEE) to end the weekend – it’s truly a fun time for all. Our band members Logan Gorsuch, Tangie Hill, and Tate Mauzy all competed in solo competitions and did very well. Andrew Reynolds, one of our pipers, also participated in Winter Storm via a scholarship he was awarded by the Midwest Pipe Band Association. All in all, it was a fun, educational, and CHILLY week in Kansas City!
The following month we hosted Pipes in the Park, an annual mock contest held at Griffith Park in northeast Los Angeles. It was an excellent way for local bands Kevin R. Blandford Memorial Pipe Band and Glendora High School Pipe Band to get feedback on their competition tunes from judges before the new season officially kicked off! Just a few weeks later, we marched in the annual LA Lunar New Year Parade held in Chinatown. 2024 was the year of the Wood Dragon, an auspicious and influential symbol promising evolution, improvement, and abundance. We didn’t know it at the time, but the Wood Dragon was quite prophetic!
MARCH, APRIL, MAY
We had City of Angels Pipe Band members performing all over Southern California, at iconic places such as The Abbey in West Hollywood, Huntington Beach Pier, The Hard Rock Cafe and Ovation shopping center in Hollywood, all to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. At the end of the month, we hosted our first ever Ceilidh, a festive party filled with live music, dancing, and of course food and drinks. At the Ceilidh we debuted our new drums, basshead, and mallets! Thank you Ulster Scottish Pipe Band of Pennsylvania for our new drums, The St. Andrew’s Society of Los Angeles for our new basshead, and Ace Percussion for our new mallets!
Viva Las Vegas! In our first (official) competition of the year in Northeast Vegas, we placed 2nd in the MSR and Medley as a band. We also won our first ever aggregate drum corp award in Grade 3 along with best midsection award for the second year in a row!
Coming home from Vegas, the band spent the next month working with amazing local coaches, Seumas Coyne, Glen Thompson, and Glenn Kvidahl. This set us up to really make an impact at the Costa Mesa Highland Games, our biggest contest in Southern California. We were thrilled to take 1st place in both our MSR and Medley as a band - our first time ever placing 1st in Grade 3! Our drum corp also won the Grade 3 aggregate award for drumming, our second time this year!
JUNE, JULY
We kicked off Pride Month by marching in the annual West Hollywood Pride Parade. Our organization is largely made up of the LGBTQIA+ community, and being able to march in the annual parade was an honor. We also love this parade because of the incredible crowd energy and love!
In July we held our first ever concert at St. Francis Episcopal Church in Palos Verdes Estates! We brought in highland dancers and singers to perform alongside us, and The Wild Heathers (a small ceilidh band made up of band members) made their performance debut. We showcased our MSR and Medley, played classic tunes such as Scotland the Brave and Amazing Grace, and even debuted our new drum salute composed by our drum sergeant, Lei Lucas. It was a fantastic day celebrating with our friends, family, and community, and was the perfect send-off before we made the trip to Scotland!
AUGUST
SCOTLAND OR BUST! After several months of hard work, we finally arrived in Scotland. We stayed at College Lands in Glasgow, a massive college dorm that housed us and several other North American bands competing at the World Pipe Band Championships: Simon Fraser University Pipe Band, North Stratton Pipe Band, Edmonton & District Pipe Band, and Dartmouth & District Pipe Band. We woke up every morning to rehearse under the coaching of our leaders and pipe band legends such as Bruce Gandy, Glenn Kvidahl and Ali North who have all had extensive experience playing in top Grade 1 bands. Here’s a day-by-day play-by-play:
August 6th-August 9th: We arrived! Flight delays, cancellations, and even lost luggage couldn’t keep us from making our debut in Glasgow. Even though many of us arrived later than originally intended, we thankfully all arrived safely. We had a few rehearsals during these first couple of days, so we mostly spent this time getting our instruments acclimated to the change in weather, and our bodies acclimated to a change in time zone.
August 10th: Our first performance of the trip was at WorldCon, an annual Science Fiction convention that was held in Glasgow. Being a heavy influence on the global Science Fiction community at large, WorldCon is working towards being more intentional about supporting diversity within Science Fiction and so it was a huge honor to be asked to play here as ambassadors of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
August 11th: We travelled to Perth to watch the European Pipe Band Championships, LIVE! For many band members, this was the first time we were able to see Grade 1 bands compete in person, rather than just on a screen. Our highlights were being able to hear and see bands such as Boghall and Bathgate, Inveraray & District, and Field Marshal Montgomery up close and personal, among many other incredible bands. After a mix-up with some of the different band’s buses, we lent our bus and some of our drums to North Stratton Pipe Band, a Grade 2 band from Alberta, Canada that was competing that day. Despite the chaos, North Stratton played excellently, and won the Grade 2 contest! Was our bus a lucky charm? We like to think so :)
August 12th: We travelled to Stirling to perform in front of HUNDREDS of people, at the famously stunning Stirling Castle. We met with fans from all over the world, played classic tunes and competition pieces, and got to explore the historical depths of the castle. Truly a once in a lifetime opportunity!
August 13th: We performed along Buchanan Street, a major shopping thoroughfare, as part of the Piping Live! festival. Starting at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, we slowly made our way down Buchanan Street, performing all throughout Glasgow. Being invited to perform at Piping Live! is a rare opportunity, and we certainly made the most of it. Even with the heavy rain pouring down on us while we were performing, you could not dampen the high energy of the crowd that came to watch.
August 14th: We visited the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall once again! This day however, WE were the audience members. We enjoyed the annual Pre-Worlds Concert, this year titled “Cabar Feidh” (Fun Fact: Cabar Feidh translates to ‘Antlers of the Stag’ in Scots Gaelic!) performed by 2023 World Pipe Band Championship Grade 1 winners, Boghall and Bathgate Caledonia Pipe Band. On top of traditional pipe band fare, Boghall debuted new musical pieces and really pushed the envelope for what pipe band music can become. Watching some of the best pipers and drummers in the world play on stage ignited sparks of creativity and served as a beautiful reminder of what is possible within the realm of the pipe band world. “Cabar Feidh” was truly a life changing experience for all!
August 15th: Rehearse, rehearse, and rehearse some more! This was our last full day of rehearsal before the World Championships started on Friday, so we celebrated Thursday night with the entire band and our coaches at a local brewery in Glasgow. Speeches were made, and tears were shed as we celebrated many months of hard work!
August 16th: It’s now Friday, the first day of the World Championships. Only Grade 1 bands competed on Friday, so we decided to pack up our instruments for one last rehearsal at Glasgow Green so we could get a feel for how the atmosphere would be. It was rainy and cold, but you could smell dozens of food trucks and feel the buzz of excitement in the air. Even though for us it was just a rehearsal, we drew crowds of inquisitive people from all over the park. Who was this band from Los Angeles? What grade are they competing in? What time will they be competing tomorrow? After our mini rehearsal, we immersed ourselves in the competitive performances of the Grade 1 bands. Witnessing these performances gave many of us goosebumps because so many of us had only ever experienced them on the internet! They were so inspiring and gave us all a new benchmark to aspire to when WE are in the contest circle.
August 17th: Worlds day is here! Time to check off your competition day list: Do you have every part of your uniform? Your instrument? Drum keys, extra reeds, hand warmers? After double and triple checking our lists, we headed over to Glasgow Green to start warming up. With the help from our coaches, friends, family, and volunteers, we were more than prepared for the day and we were counting down the minutes until our 12:34pm performance time. Suddenly, our band was called to the line. Of course, the Glasgow rain started to hit us right at this moment. However, we marched in and played our MSR better than we ever had! Years of hard work and meticulous planning, just for three minutes and thirty seconds of music. As we marched off the field, the realization of what we did hit us. We were a Grade 4 band our first year competing in 2022, and now we were a Grade 3 band competing at the World Championships in 2024. We hugged, we cried, and we tried to savor every last moment with each other. It then became a waiting game until results were announced that evening, so we went off to grab food, cheers to one another for all we had accomplished, and enjoy the rest of the band contests.
At around 6:00pm, the formal march-past ceremony began, which is a televised and live-streamed event on the BBC where each band marches past the awards stage and their name and city of origin is announced. It was surreal, to say the least, to hear “City of Angels Pipe Band, all the way from Los Angeles” announced on the speakers and to all our friends, families, and supporters watching across the world!
While the band didn’t hear our name called as part of the top six bands in Grade 3B, we were proud to learn of the full results breakdown after receiving our feedback sheets.
Out of 22 Grade 3B bands from across the world, we placed 6th in drumming, and tied for 9th as a band overall. This was higher than any other North American band in our division, and an incredible achievement for our first time at the World Championships!
SEPTEMBER, OCTOBER, NOVEMBER
Less than two weeks after our debut in Scotland, we were traveling once again. This time to the Pleasanton Highland Games just east of San Francisco! We placed 2nd in our Medley, 1st in our MSR, AND our drum corps (once again!) won the aggregate drumming award for the weekend. Our MSR also earned us firsts from all four judges, giving us our first “picket fence” (1111) victory!
Our last contest of the season was at the Seaside Highland Games in Ventura. We ended up winning first in both our MSR and our Medley, with firsts from all four judges both days. (Another picket fence win!) Our hard work throughout the year definitely paid off. Our drum corp once again won the aggregate award for the weekend, solidifying our winning streak for the year!
In November three of our pipers, Logan Gorsuch, Andrew Reynolds, and Noah Graham, were invited to play at the first ever Western States Solo Invitational hosted by the Western United States Pipe Band Association. Being invited to play at such a prestigious invitation-only solo contest is a huge honor and all of us were so proud to support Logan, Andrew, and Noah as they represented years of hard work on their solo music while representing our band. Logan even ended up winning the Grade 3 aggregate award at the contest, amongst a field of highly competitive soloists!
ALL IN ALL…
2024 was a wonderful time indeed! As the Wood Dragon predicted, we had quite the year filled with evolution, prosperity and abundance. We travelled all over the world, made new friends, and played some great music. Our artistry and technicality improved by leaps and bounds, and we definitely could not have done it without the support from our friends, family, sponsors, and people like you reading this newsletter!
The band has so much momentum behind us coming off such a milestone year, and lots of planning and strategy work has gone into all that we aim to do in 2025. While we’re super eager to dig in and get to work on it all, we ARE making sure we take the time to enjoy what’s left of the holiday season and we hope you are too.
Cheers to 2024! We’ll see you again in 2025! Stay Tuned!