Kirkwall City Pipe Band
Kirkwall City Pipe Band (KCPB), lead by Pipe Major Raymie Peace, celebrated its 90th birthday in 2009. It was on November 23, 1919, that a pipe band in civilian clothes led a parade in Kirkwall to commemorate the Armistice of 1918. This was the first public appearance of what was to become the Kirkwall City Pipe Band.
Kirkwall City is now a thriving and sociable band of pipers and drummers, with members in their teens to their 70s. The band proudly wears the Mackenzie Seaforth modern tartan, with many Orkney men having been members of the former Seaforth Highlanders regiment.
Having been British Champions and third in the World Championships in their grade in 2004, the band has brought home silverware from several competitions since. Members have also recorded two CDs in recent years; Milestone, released in 2004 for KCPB’s 85th anniversary, followed by Anthems of a Peedie Nation in 2004.
The last couple of years have proven very busy year for the KCPB. In January 2008 the band were special guests at Lerwick’s Up-Helly-Aa fire festival in Shetland. In June the same year they return hosted the Jarl’s Squad during the St Magnus Festival, and August saw the band then host Orcadian singer-songwriter, and former Wolfstone frontman, Ivan Drever for a concert in front of St Magnus Cathedral, drawing around 1500 to Broad Street. However it was a much larger crowd that greeted the return visit of the entire Shetland viking squad in a mini fire festival that included a torchlit procession and the burning of a galley at the Peedie Sea, echoing the traditions of Up-Helly-Aa in the streets of Kirkwall for the very first time.
In 2009 the KCPB performed at the Orkney Folk Festival's Pickaquoy Piping Concert, where they appeared in concert with the Stromness RBL Pipe Band, the Orkney Traditional Music Project and the visiting Robert Wiseman Dairies Vale of Atholl Pipe Band. A true community band, they can always be seen performing at local events and ceremonies.
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