Read some background stories about our band's musical leaders.
Pipe Major - Sally-Anne Richter
My piping career started during my school days. I fell in love with pipes when I was a child. After trying a few instruments throughout school, when the opportunity for learning the bagpipes became available. I am sure my mother would have loved me to continue with piano or even trumpet, which I very much enjoyed. But it was the bagpipes that I was determined to conquer.
In school, when I was 16, I decided to take the leap and get lessons to learn this instrument, and I was fortunate to have the world-renowned Mark Saul as the school's piping tutor at Presbyterian Ladies College in Melbourne.
Mark was building a new pipe band for the college, and I was fortunate to be chosen as the first pipe major for the college. Many of my fellow band members are still involved in bands throughout Australia and overseas.
I continued playing in Melbourne and joined Hawthorn Pipe Band when they were in Grade 3.
For work reasons, I moved to Launceston in 2011. An important factor in my relocation was making sure that my new area had a local pipe band, and that is when I stumbled upon St Andrews Caledonian Pipe Band.
Over the years, I have been fortunate enough to play on stage with artists such as Andre Rieu and John Farnham. During a visit to Scotland in 2018, I was part of a group that performed for Queen Elizabeth II at her residence in Balmoral Castle. I have performed overseas at the Edinburgh Military Tattoo on a number of occasions as well as the World Pipe Band Championships, The Basel Tattoo and a number of times in Brittany at the Festival Interceltique de Lorient.
One thing in particular that I love about pipe bands is the friendships that you make. I have been very fortunate over the years to join as a guest player with different bands in Australia, Canada, Scotland, and Ireland.
At the 2023 band AGM, I was elected as Pipe Major for SACPB. It has been a role I have been proud of ever since. Over the past few years, I have seen the band members grow, new learners join, and the entire band working together as a team to continue the long history this band has created. Being the first elected female Pipe Major of the band in its 90+ year history brings its own level of responsibility and even pressure at times, but, it's one I take with pride.
Piping has become a huge part of my life and has led me to have some wonderful experiences and meet some amazing people. It's a hobby (or life choice!) that I would recommend to anybody.
Pipe Sergeant - Joanne Crack
My desire to play the bagpipes began at a very young age. From around the age of six, I would beg my mother to take me to the Christmas parade so I could watch the pipe band march past. The sound was imposing, and the men playing them even more so.
As I grew older, I learned keyboard, flute, violin and viola, and dabbled in guitar, saxophone and trumpet. Despite exploring all those instruments, I never forgot about the pipes.
Fast forward ten years, and St Andrew’s placed a recruitment advertisement in the local paper, offering piping and drumming lessons. I pestered my father to call the number. The response was memorable: I was welcome to come along for a lesson to see if I showed any promise, but it was unlikely to amount to much because bagpipes were not really considered an instrument for girls - especially a sixteen-year-old one. I would, apparently, be “eaten alive”.
At my very first lesson, I learned the scale, gracenotes and a tune. Each lesson that followed brought more embellishments and more tunes. After only six to eight lessons, I played my first set of pipes. I was hooked.
Not long afterwards, my teacher moved out of town. At sixteen, with no means of transport, my piping journey came to an abrupt end.
Two years later, I met someone whose mother “knew a man who was Pipe Major of St Andrew’s and also gave lessons.” That very day, she took me to meet Pipe Major Ron Grant.
This is where my piping journey truly began.
What followed was twenty years of membership with St Andrew’s. Being the only female piper, and often the only female member of the band, I would be lying if I said it were easy. However, I was determined that my gender would never undermine my place in the pipe corps.
Yet those years shaped me as both a musician and a person, and they remain some of the most significant of my life. It was also through St Andrew’s that I met and married my husband, the band’s bass drummer.
After a twenty year break to raise my daughter, I have recently returned to the band. The changes over those two decades have been remarkable. Today, there are many female pipers and drummers of all ages, and the band has become a welcoming and inclusive place where everyone is encouraged to belong and contribute.
I look forward to many more years of piping and the experiences, friendships and music still to come.
Parade Drum Major - Ben Mclatchie
Details to come...
Drum Sergeant - David Crack
1989…. Hair Metal was arguably at its peak, and a 15-year-old lad was asked the life-changing question by a childhood friend (and future Pipe Major)… "Do you want to be a drummer in my band?"
This is how I found myself becoming a Tenor Drummer, and later a Bass Drummer with St Andrew’s—a decision that went on to dictate the course of my life.
In the ensuing few years, the band was blessed to have not only a very experienced cohort, but also a quite sizeable contingent of young players, (at one point we could have nearly fielded a full competition band of people under 21) ready and raring to embrace the renaissance of “kitchen piping” and, in the single minded way that youth do, drag the band kicking and screaming towards the new millennium… mini bands playing previously unheard tunes (at least here in Tassie). Inspired by CDs that could only be obtained by 2am phone calls to the other side of the world. For the core of this group, for a number of years it was simply life was band, and band was life….
It was during this time that a spark was ignited between me and the band’s first female piper since around WW2, Joanne, who would later become my wife.
Life and band continued in earnest with the dawn of Celtic Force in the late 90’s, then in the early part of the new century, as the band’s attention turned to a shot at the Worlds. On the side, a little hereto unknown secret project was hatched...
Code-named 'PB2020', the dream was to create the ultimate hybrid - A piper with a sense of timing and rhythm (though Jo would argue they had that already) or a drummer with musical ability (I am still working on that one).
Late in the year 2006, Series 1 of the project arrived - Emily. (Aka PB2020 = To be ready for the band for the 2020 season)
After Emily was born, Jo and I took a short break to concentrate on the next part of the secret project. Unfortunately, as happens, the project was not a total success for the band. Whilst rhythm, timing, and musicality are all very much present. There is very little interest shown in Pipe Bands in general. At this point, the band has not continued with the project.
In the time I was absent working on PB2020, I was still in the band’s general orbit, filling in where needed for various bigger parades, with a constant invitation to return more permanently. Eventually, I took up the sticks again in early 2024.
This leads me to today, where a now 52 year old me, having rediscovered the simple joy of playing with the band, is very much relishing my new role as Drum Corporal and Bass Drummer. I hope not only to pass on my experience as a drummer but, more importantly what makes a great bands person. I want to be able to help other individuals to find that same joy and happiness that playing with this band has brought me.
Click here to meet the rest of the band.
