The 78th Fraser Highlanders Pipe Band, is a pipe band from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The 78th Frasers became the first non-Scottish band to win the World Pipe Band Championships, in the summer of 1987. In 2007, the Drum Corps led by Drew Duthart captured the Best Drum Corps Prize and the Best Bass Section award at the World Pipe Band Championships at Glasgow Green in Scotland.
Under the direction of Pipe Major Doug MacRae, the band is still active in the competitive pipe band arena to this day. The band has won both the North American Pipe Band Championships (held in Maxville, Ontario) and the Canadian Pipe Band Championships (held in Cambridge, Ontario) a total of twelve times each. The Frasers travel to Scotland each summer to compete at the World's, and have finished in the prize list eleven times.
In addition to their competitive activities, the band has always had a mandate and goal to expand the pipe band idiom and to introduce new musical concepts into the genre through their recordings and concerts. Their recording Live In Ireland (1987) is regarded by some as the quintessential modern pipe band recording.
Their recordings include:
- 78th Fraser Highlanders (Faces album) (1983)
- Up to the Line (1985)
- Live In Ireland (1987)
- The Immigrant's Suite (1989)
- Live in Canada - The Megantic Outlaw Concert (1991)
- Live in Scotland (1993)
- Flame of Wrath (1998)
- Cascade (2003)
Famous quotes containing the words pipe and/or band:
“It is not that the Englishman can’t feel—it is that he is afraid to feel. He has been taught at his public school that feeling is bad form. He must not express great joy or sorrow, or even open his mouth too wide when he talks—his pipe might fall out if he did.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“What passes for identity in America is a series of myths about one’s heroic ancestors. It’s astounding to me, for example, that so many people really seem to believe that the country was founded by a band of heroes who wanted to be free. That happens not to be true. What happened was that some people left Europe because they couldn’t stay there any longer and had to go someplace else to make it. They were hungry, they were poor, they were convicts.”
—James Baldwin (1924–1987)