For the first time ever a Canadian Scottish pipe band, including five St. Albertans, will be competing in South America.
The Alberta Regimental Pipe, Drums & Dancers band will be competing at the Scottish Pipe Band Association of South America’s (SPBASA) 9th gathering in Montevideo, Uruguay on Oct. 29, 2022.
St. Albertan Drum Major, Jared Redekopp has been a member of the pipe band for 20 years. He said the organizers were very receptive to having the Alberta band come and participate.
“(The organizers are) quite excited. When we first had a meeting with them, one of their questions was, ‘How did you even hear about this?'"
“From Edmonton when you look at a map, you don't realize how far away it is until you really look at a globe and go, this is a fair, fair chunk of travel,” he said.
The Alberta Regimental Pipe, Drum and Dancers band is the first band from outside of South America to attend the event and it is the first time the band will be competing outside of Alberta.
The event will span over the course of four days from Oct. 27 to Oct. 30 with band competitions taking place on Oct. 29, according to the Pipe Band Gathering website.
Redekopp said the band will be on the road for around 26 hrs before they even land in Montevideo.
Once there, the band, which consists of 15 musicians and four dancers, will compete in three events including two pipe band events and a dance core.
The pipe events include a march medley, which Redekopp said is a type of tune the band plays in parades.
“Then we're competing in a medley, which is a series of about seven tunes all with different time signatures,” he said.
The dance core is “the most unique” event, said Redekopp.
“The pipe band plays for the dancers, and then we're both adjudicated. The dancers themselves come up with a choreography to dance along with the tunes that we're playing,” he said.
There are ten confirmed bands, according to the website, with four bands hailing from Argentina, three bands from Uruguay, and one band each from Brazil, Chile, and Canada.
Redekopp said the band has a very packed itinerary in South America.
On top of the competition, Redekopp himself will be teaching some clinics for the pipe bands, the band will be playing in a street parade, and they will be doing a couple of events in support of the Canadian Embassy in Uruguay including performing at the Canada School in Montevideo.
“The embassy asked if we could perform at the Canada School. So, we asked them well, ‘What's the Canada School?’
“What we were told is that some of the embassies support schools in poor districts of Montevideo. (The Canadian Embassy) thought it'd be kind of neat to bring a bunch of guys in red surge down to perform for these kids,” he said.
Redekopp said the band will also be bringing down school supplies.
“We've also fundraised internally in the pipe band, about $1,800, and we bought a bunch of school supplies that we're bringing down as well,” he said.
When it comes to what Redekopp is most excited for, he said he thinks most people in the band are excited to perform at the Canada School “for these kids who've probably never met a Canadian before.”
The Alberta Regimental Pipe, Drums & Dancers band also fundraised to attend the event through a variety of events including their annual Robbie Burns dinner, silent auctions as well as honorariums from performances. Redekopp emphasized that no public funds were used for the band to travel or compete.
“This is what I call a bucket list event… I've never been to South America and neither has the majority of the pipe band I believe. It's kind of an excitement that we get to do something that no one else has done before, in a place that most people just read about and have never been to.”
The Alberta Regimental Pipe, Drums & Dancers band will be celebrating their 30th anniversary in 2023 which coincides with the 150th anniversary of the RCMP, according to a press statement about the band.
