Helsinki Pipes and Drums, originally "The MacGregor Highlanders", was founded in 1991 by John MacGregor of the clan MacIntosh. The band included some professional musicians with high musical skills in its ranks right from the start, thus achieving an average level of playing quite quickly.

Under John's period as a Pipe Major, the band developed from an upstart band to a pipe band with international contacts and knowledge of the playing skills required for a pipe band. The band visited e.g. Long Island Highland Games in New York, U.S.A and formed contacts with the Scandinavian piping community.

In 1997 the band changed its name to Helsinki Pipes and Drums on the eve of John's departure to Tallinn, Estonia, where he still teaches young pipers in addition to pursuing a career in the restaurant business.

In 1998 John was replaced by P/M (Pipe Major) Gustav Henriksson, who gracefully led the band to its first international competition, and major concert. The band lost him in the year 2001, when he moved to Sweden. In 2002 Gustav Henriksson was replaced by P/M, Ms. Annukka Matilainen, another product of the tuition of HelPD members and guest teachers, who in turn was replaced by Eevastiina Korri in January 2006...and Annukka Matilainen again from 2008 onwards.

Lineup of the band consists now of 6 pipers, two snare drummers, one of which is also a bass drummer, when need be. Older band members have students under tuition.

The band practises regularly, and has during the years performed in TV and several music-festivals, including:

Kaustinen Folk Music Festival (3 years) Kotka Sea Week Crusell-week Aamu-TV - Finnish National Television morning show "Hyvät Herrat"" - TV-show Oulu Highland Games (for Eurosport satellite channel) Long Island Highland Games -Happening, New York U.S.A Helsinki Pop & Jazz Conservatory Big Band happening and Celtic Evening ...as well as several smaller occasions.

A significant part of the education and cultural activity of the group is done together with other pipe bands from Scandinavia.
Ties with the 1:st Royal Engineers of Stockholm (Sweden), and Aarhus Pipes and Drums (Denmark) have been especially close, as members of the Helsinki Pipes and Drums have performed in Sweden, Sicily, Malta, Belgium, Denmark and Scotland with the aforementioned bands.

The band has imported teachers from Sweden, Denmark, Scotland and New Zealand to educate them further in piping and drumming - master classes by foreign teachers are preferred, as piping culture in Finland is still relatively young.

Members of the band have taken part in several master classes and competitions during the last years.
The bands competing premiere in 2001 gave them third place in the band competition of their series, as well as eight prizes in solo competitions. This should be considered as a success of sorts, as this was the bands (and its members) first competition ever.

Band members have already also taken part in other competitions of high level, like the European Championships and the great of the greats, The World Pipe Band Championships. 2002 WPBC saw its first Finnish competitor in the Glasgow Green, in Grade 2 with the 1:st Royal Engineers of Stockholm. The band was eighth in its heat.

The bands repertoire is mainly traditional Scottish Pipe Band music, with a hint of the modern. Typical sets include Scottish marches and slow airs, as well as strathspeys, reels, jigs and hornpipes. Band also likes to add tonal breadth to their sound, celtic fusion songs by Dan-Ar-Braz and others have been performed with modern pop-bands consisting of keyboards, drum-kit, electric guitar and the like.

Performances are formed to suit the occasion, all wishes of the client are considered and acted upon.
If you seek to order us, we kindly request you to consider the following suggestion as the basic form for the performance of the evening:

To maintain the interest of the audience, it is worth considering to have shortish (5-15 min) sets, which are then performed 1-2 times in an hour. This also makes it possible to have the instruments well in tune - climate and air humidity are known to affect the tuning of the pipes.

The band always performs in traditional Scottish attire, and follows the formal customs of pipe band performances. When the band is not playing or tuning, the audience has ample chance for conversations about Scottish music and Scottish culture - everything we know, we are more than willing to pass on.

The bands main goals currently are to build the bands numbers and achieve a higher level of playing skill.

If you want to contact us, e-mail:
info(at)bagpipe.fi

Thank You for your interest.