Judges
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Ed Best - Drumming (WUSPBA and EUSPBA Unafilliated)
Ed Best is a qualified, professional educator with over 30 years of successful pipe band experience and has a Bachelor's Degree in Music Education. He has held many band and solo titles in all grades including North American Champion, East Coast Champion Supreme, Ontario Champion Supreme, West Coast Champion of Champions, and Canadian Champion. Ed also spent 10 years as a School Music Teacher in all grades from Elementary through the University level.
Ed has competed in, and placed at the World Pipe Band Championships in Glasgow, Scotland in many grades up to and including Grade I.
Ed is active as an adjudicator at Highland Games throughout the United States. He is an "A" panel drumming and ensemble judge in the WUSPBA and a drumming judge in the EUSPBA. He also serves on the Music Board of WUSPBA, where his primary functions are grading of bands and soloists and Adjudicator training/education and certification. He recorded a DVD for adjudicator training, available to the general public here http://www.wuspba.org.
Ed is a regular instructor for bands and schools across the country. He provides instruction to the drummers, helps with music composition and arranging. He also provides instruction in band ensemble. His individual students and bands regularly appear in the prize lists at highland games across the country. Ed understands that everyone is different and has different strengths and goals. He works hard to be sure that your needs are met. He has experience teaching ages 4 through 80.
For more information about Ed, please click HERE
Ed is EUSPBA certified in Snare. He is certified by WUSPBA in all aspects of drumming.
John Bottomley - Piping (EUSPBA Mid-Atlantic Branch)
John "El Bottomley" began piping at the age of eight, because his father told him not to. This means that he has been piping for more than 55 years, starting out with the Amityville American Legion Pipe Band (what we would call a beer and pretzels band nowadays) in 1963. In 1969, after meeting and coming under the tutelage of Stewart Roberton, formerly of Edinburgh and Bulawayo, John got the course correction he needed. He played in the groundbreaking Guelph Pipe Band in the 1970s, and has led a number of successful pipe bands. He is currently the Director of Bagpiping at the United States Military Academy at West Point.
In addition to playing the pipes, John is quite possibly the world's worst jazz guitar player. He brings the open-minded approach you need in jazz to his judging, welcoming tunes from many styles and schools on their own merit. His thinking is that, "If I wanted to hear somebody play like me, I'd play it myself. No-one plays more like me than I do."
His five CDs have been received well by the reviewers, and have added nearly twelve dollars to his income annually.
A long-time judge in the EUSPBA, he is recognized internationally as a top piobaireachd player and authority. When he typed the last sentence, spell check wanted to change 'piobaireachd' to 'irreproachable.' He thought you should know that.
John is EUSPBA certified in all aspects of piping.
Dr. Patrick Regan - Piping (EUSPBA Ohio Valley Branch)
Patrick Regan the Bagpiper - (a lighthearted biography)
Patrick Regan the Bagpiper first took to the stage at age three, but it took another eight years to convince the bagpipe to come onstage with him. Since then, he has been regaling audiences, annoying bagpiping judges, frightening music teachers, and inspiring students with his mix of music, humor, and a "terrier-like" determination to take over the world with the bagpipe.
As an entertainer, Patrick has performed in 45 States, and 14 countries, including "command performances" for the Royal Families of Jordan and Qatar. Closer to home, this Native Texan was honored to be a member of the Texas Commission on the Arts Touring Artist Roster for more than 25 years, appearing at such venues as the Galveston Opera, the National Museum of the Pacific War, in Fredericksburg, The Texas Folklife Festival, in San Antonio, The North Texas Irish Festival, in Dallas, and the Kerrville Folk Festival. With more than 200 theatrical productions to his credit, Patrick brings practical experience as a director, actor, producer, and technical director to the position of Artistic Director.
Although Patrick has one foot firmly planted on the stage, his other foot rests solidly in the classroom. As an educator, Patrick first developed a love of teaching after being tricked into learning by instructors who were later to become his lifelong mentors. From them he developed his teaching philosophy: "Education is serious, but it doesn't have to be somber." Students who attend Patrick's classes achieve far more than their minimum requirement of laughter. While beginners come away with a solid knowledge of the basics, advanced players are treated to deep insight and understanding of piobaireachd, the classical music of the Great Highland Bagpipe. Students entering Edinboro University as bagpipe majors can expect to learn four things: how to teach; how to perform; how to win competitions; and most importantly, how to survive as a professional musician.Academically, Patrick holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Music (Bagpipe) from Carnegie Mellon University (he was the first survivor of the degree program), along with minors in Drama and Conducting, a Master of Arts in Adult and Community Education from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, a Teacher's Certificate from the Scottish Piping and Drumming Qualifications Board, and the Graduate Certificate from the Eastern United States Pipe Band Association (EUSPBA). In 2016 he was awarded his PhD in Music History and Pedagogy at Durham University in England. Patrick is also a member of the EUSPBA adjudicator's panel.
And when he grows up, he wants to be a bagpiper.
Patrick is EUSPBA certified in all aspects of piping.
