Scott Garden is a Traditional Musician based in Ayrshire, specialising in the Highland Bagpipes, Bellow-Blown Pipes, Whistles and Composition. Scott is a Royal Conservatoire of Scotland Alumni holding a 1st Class Honours Degree in Traditional Music, Specialising in Piping.
Scott began piping at the age of 11 at the Irvine & District Pipe Band and rose to the rank of Pipe Sargent at age 16 and was a part of the bands most successful year to date. Scott then moved to the Glasgow Skye Association Pipe Band under Pipe Major Ewan Henderson for a number of years while studying at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Ewan allowed Scott to experiment with harmonies and help arrange the bands medleys, which was a huge honour.
At these bands, Scott has helped to arrange medleys, concert material for the bands and continues to strive to create something unique and modern sounding through his approach to harmonies. Scott was formerly the Pipe Sergeant and Musical Director at the Ayr Pipe Band Society and currently has returned to his roots as the Pipe Sergeant at Irvine & District Pipe Band in 2022.
Scott is a member of the Competing Pipers Association and is currently competing in Light Music and Pibroch in C Grade.
Scott studied for 5 years at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, learning from the likes of Stuart Samson MBE, Ross Ainslie and Marc Duff to name but a few and graduated in 2018 with a 1st Class Honours Degree in Traditional Music. Through studying at the Conservatoire, he was given the opportunity to perform alongside Phil Cunningham and Dougie MacLean. Scott has also performed for His Royal Highness Prince Charles on a number of occasions and appeared on BBC Radio Scotland and also BBC ALBA. He is a 2-time Semi-Finalist for the BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year.
Scott also performs with lifelong friend and professional musician Scott Figgins as part of the Duo Figgins-Garden. In this duo Scott (Garden) plays pipes and whistle and is in high demand since the release of their EP “Horizonto” in 2019 at the Piping Live Festival.
While at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland Scott discovered a love and skill at composition and has now composed just under 300 tunes at the time of this writing, with more to come! Scott’s tunes are performed by soloists, traditional music groups and pipe bands alike. Scotts tunes are released in a line of tune books called “Duality”, the first one being successfully launched in 2018 at the Piping Live Festival and Volumes 2 and 3 awaiting release.
Scott offers his services as a performer and tutor as well as selling his tune books through his bandcamp. More information on these services can be found here.
