{"id":27145,"date":"2025-04-01T15:57:39","date_gmt":"2025-04-01T15:57:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/160-news\/?p=27145"},"modified":"2026-03-17T20:57:03","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T20:57:03","slug":"from-bagpipes-to-recorder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/2025\/04\/from-bagpipes-to-recorder\/","title":{"rendered":"From bagpipes to recorder"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote pullquote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cPiping is a niche instrument,\u201d President Rivera said, before adding: \u201cMany students have already had recorder lessons from third grade and can come ready to join the new band.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p><b>St. Paul, Minn. \u2014 <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Macalester College is pleased to announce that it will no longer feature bagpipes at Commencement, Convocation, or any other official college event, effective immediately.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cFor decades at Macalester, we\u2019ve rung in the new academic year and sent off our graduating classes to the sound of a dozen or more bagpipers playing \u2018Scotland the Brave,\u2019\u201d said President Rivera.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rivera announced the new policy at a special meeting.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cPiping is a niche instrument,\u201d Rivera said, before adding: \u201cMany students have already had recorder lessons from third grade and can come ready to join the new band.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Additional reasons cited for the change were complaints from the Groveland Neighborhood Association and that earplugs go against our zero waste policy. Rivera expressed confidence that the policy change would mitigate both issues.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cI do think there\u2019s a lot of potential with a recorder. The sound is whimsical, lilting almost,\u201d said Mike Breidenbach, formerly Macalester\u2019s director of piping.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">As of today, Macalester\u2019s official campus woodwind will be the recorder. In conjunction with the announcement, Breidenbach has been promoted to Director of Recorder at Macalester College. In that capacity, he will still give free music lessons to all Macalester students (albeit on the recorder), and will lead the creation and rehearsal of the college\u2019s first-ever marching recorder band.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cI might have preferred the oboe, if I\u2019d had a say,\u201d said Breidenbach. \u201cBut I\u2019d like to thank President Rivera for this new opportunity, and I look forward to hearing \u2018Hot Cross Buns\u2019 echo across campus for years to come.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"videoWrapper video-wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/u3Vm1IHu5hI?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Macalester\u2019s current store of bagpipes and piping-related materials are being donated to an after-school program in Scotland. Try-outs for the marching recorder band will be held tomorrow night. No experience necessary.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, and happy April Fool\u2019s Day.<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Macalester switches from bagpipes to recorder.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":27147,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[208,13],"class_list":["post-27145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-newswire","tag-commencement","tag-music","mediatype-articles"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"fields":{"article_type":[8],"flickr_photoset_id":"","youtube_id":"","square_thumbnail":false,"press_photos":false,"story_title":"","story_caption":"","rotations":false,"maps":false,"marker_title":"","marker_text":"","geographic_location":false,"feature_embed":"","custom_link_url":"","news_icon_name":"","image_options":false,"main_feature_story":"","custom_image":false,"custom_feature_title":"","custom_feature_caption":"","custom_markup":"","custom_markup_link":"","custom_markup_title":"","custom_markup_caption":"","byline":"","post_thumbnail_style":"default","press_downloads":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27145"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31757,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27145\/revisions\/31757"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}