Rob Crabtree

Rob Crabtree began bagpiping at age 10, and was the 1986 North American Amateur Champion. In his years of professional solo piping, Rob has reached the highest levels of piping, culminating with his capture of the 1998 Gold Medal at Braemar, Scotland and the 1997 North American Professional Championship. He is a regular performer and prizewinner at the world's foremost competitions. A major goal of Rob's career has been extending the appeal of bagpipes to wider audiences. With his Juno-nominated 1999 album, The Piper's Legacy, he has advanced this goal remarkably. He has since recorded three other popular albums of orchestrated bagpipe music. As a live performer, Rob delights listeners with his presentations of bagpipe accompanied by piano, guitar, fiddle, percussion and other familiar instruments. Rob received his initial bagpipe instruction from private tutors supplemented by summer school tutelage from top instructors from Scotland. As a professional player, he studied under two of Canada's foremost bagpipe authorities: Jim McGillivray of Aurora, Ontario and Scott MacAulay, director of the College of Piping in Summerside, PEI. Rob is himself a leader in the instructional arena and is the co-founder of one of the top bagpipe summer schools in North America. In addition to the Highland bagpipe, Rob plays Scottish smallpipes and tin whistle. Beyond music, Rob is developing a parallel career as a fiction writer. He lives in Toronto with his wife and their three children. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.