Michael Flight

Michael Flight started his pipe band experience in the late 1980s as a tenor drummer of the St. Andrew’s Society of the River Plate Pipe Band. While playing the tenor drum, Michael attended piping lessons with fellow band members, and started playing the Great Highland Bagpipe at age 15, and started his teaching experience shortly after. Michael reached the high ranks of the pipe band in 1996 when appointed as Pipe Sergeant, and later elected Pipe Major in December 2000, conducting the pipe band for the following two years.

Michael’s recent piping experience has been highly influenced by Bob Worrall (worldwide renowned champion piper, instructor and judge) while attending the Montevideo Bagpipe Festivals, including concerts and workshops throughout 1999-2003. This adds to lessons taken at the Piping Centre (Glasgow) in January 1999 and the Schenectady Pipe Band’s Highland Arts Festival in January 2001 (Albany, NY), with the participation of the four-time world champion Simon Fraser University Pipe Band in a concert and several piping and pipe band workshops. And most recently, again in Montevideo, the piping workshops conducted by Anne Grey and Ken Eller at the March 2003 Montevideo Celtic Festival, and at the First South American Pipe Band Gathering with Pipe Major Robert Mathieson (House of Edgar Shotts & Dykeheads Caledonia Pipe Band).

Bob Worrall introduced Michael to the world of the Scottish Small Pipes in the late 1990s. Tunable to A and Bb, the combination with other instruments has become much easier than with the Great Highland Bagpipe. Michael has been a guest small-piper with the Buenos Aires Jazz and Blues Band at the Hard Rock Cafe.

Michael is at present one of the busiest instructors in Buenos Aires, author of the SASRP Pipe Band Highland Bagpipe Tutor (1st Edition in 1997, and revised in 2002) and the SASRP Pipe Band Piper’s Handbook (1st Edition in 1998); SASRP Pipe Band’s Mid Section Coach, and one of the founding members of the Scottish Pipe Band Association of South America.