Moving Musicians Bring Tunes to Every Corner of the Irish Festival

At 10:00am on Saturday, October 31st, the Phoenix Pipe Band will continue a tradition they began at the first Arizona Irish Festival in 2001 by opening the event with a stirring march into and around the Festival grounds. If eight years sound like a long run, try counting backward to 1958.

The Phoenix Pipe Band

The Phoenix Pipe Band, known previously as the Phoenix Scottish Pipe Band, is the oldest continuously running pipe band in Arizona. Those fifty years have witnessed change, growth and innovation, much of it witnessed personally by the band’s current Pipe Major Leonard Wood, Jr. who joined the band in 1961.

The wardrobe of red MacGregor kilts has clothed hundreds of pipers and drummers through the years and many of them have moved on to grace other piping organizations including the Argyll Pipe Band, Shrine, Phoenix Police, Mesa Caledonian, Spirit of Scotland, Seven Pipers Society, and other bands in Arizona and elsewhere.

The core of tradition is giving way to change, though. The Band is expanding its repertoire of Irish music and embracing a more inclusive approach to Celtic music in general.  To reflect this, the band name was changed from “Phoenix Scottish” to simply “Phoenix Pipe Band” in 2007.  They have also moved away from a military uniform spats and khaki shirts to a friendlier look. The Phoenix Pipe Band always welcomes new members of all ages and abilities. Its weekly practices occur Sunday afternoons at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix.

In addition to their key role in the opening parade, Phoenix Pipe Band membes will also entertain Festival goers throughout the day as they play in the park and pipe dignitaries to the Festival stages.