For Auld Lang Syne

Burns Nights, pipe bands all about remembering

Tery Graves knows a lot about fighting fires. He's a battalion chief with the Fort Smith Fire Department.

But he didn't know anything about playing the bagpipes -- or music, for that matter -- until a few years ago.

FAQ

Burns Night

WHO — With the Fort Smith Firefighters Pipe and Drum Corps & Fort Smith Firefighters Foundation

WHEN — 6-10 p.m. Jan. 31

WHERE — Bricktown Brewery in Fort Smith

COST — $25

INFO — 459-8915 or 434-2739

Burns Night

WHO — Ozark Highlands Bagpipe Band

WHEN — 6 p.m. Jan. 24

WHERE — St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Fayetteville

COST — $30

INFO — 444-0746

It's tradition, Graves explains, for bagpipes to be played at the funerals of firefighters and police officers, a custom that dates back to when those jobs were largely held by Irish and Scottish immigrants.

Graves wanted a pipe and drum corps, and he convinced Harriet Sisson of the Fayetteville-based Ozark Highlanders to teach him.

"You can order bagpipes online," he says, "but you really need somebody to teach you to play them!"

The Fort Smith Firefighters Pipe and Drum Corps started playing in 2009 and performing in 2011.

"It takes about a year and a half before you can play in public," Graves says with a laugh.

This year, for the first time, the Fort Smith Firefighters Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to honoring fallen firefighters in the River Valley, and the band will work together to host a Burns Night Supper on Jan. 31. The Scottish Club of Fort Smith recently disbanded, Graves explains, and the pipe band promised to keep the tradition alive -- at least for this year.

Burns Night Suppers date to the turn of the 19th century, an annual way to remember "the national poet of Scotland," Robert Burns, first marking his death on July 21, 1796, and later to celebrate his birth on Jan. 25, 1759.

Best known in America for his "Auld Lang Syne," Burns was "all but idolized in Scotland" during his life, according to robertburns.org, "because he (had) preserved so much of the richness of Scotland's past, and because he possessed the gift of stating the commonplaces of life in a way which (made) them significantly memorable."

"Every Burns Supper has its own special form and flavour, though there are probably more similarities than differences among these gastro-literary affairs," the web site adds. Like the Fort Smith event, all of them include bagpipes.

The Ozark Highlanders have been hosting their supper in Fayetteville for 32 years, according to band manager JoAnn Tyler. The band, formed in 1984, currently numbers seven pipers and four drummers.

Set for Jan. 24, "the evening celebrating Scottish culture includes dinner, a performance by the bagpipe band, other Celtic music and a remembrance of Robert Burns," she adds.

-- Becca Martin-Brown

[email protected]

NAN What's Up on 01/16/2015

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