Festifall to feature nationally-acclaimed piper
A nationally-acclaimed piper will showcase his talent on stage Sunday at Friendship Hill National Historic Site in Point Marion during the community’s annual FestiFall.
“The bagpipe is my instrument of choice because it stirs my heart, like it has stirred so many other hearts over the past thousands of years or so,” said George Balderose.
A Pittsburgh native, Balderose brings with him 30 years of performing Scottish and Irish pipe music on the Great Highland Bagpipe and various sets of bellows smallpipes playing at weddings, concerts, festivals, funerals, birthdays and other special occasions.
FestiFall will be held from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at the Site located at 223 New Geneva Road.
The family event is sponsored by the Friendship Hill Association and the National Park Service in celebration of Albert Gallatin whose historic home is Friendship Hill.
This is the second time that Balderose will return to Fayette County, having visited Laurel Highlands High School in 1975.
Although he grew up in New Jersey, Balderose calls himself the “Pittsburgh Piper,” having lived in the area since the 1960s.
Balderose started taking piping lessons in 1974, and in 1979 he co-founded the Balmoral Schools of Highland Piping with Scottish Gold Medalist James McIntosh where he continues to instruct and serve as director.
The school is a non-profit corporation and the only certified U.S. Government vendor for bagpipe and drumming instruction.
Summer sessions have taken place in more than 22 college and university locations, including this year at Shady Side Academy in Pittsburgh and East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania.
Throughout his piping career, Balderose has performed as a soloist at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City, Carnegie Music Hall in Pittsburgh and four times as a guest artist with the Pittsburgh Symphony at Heniz Hall.
He has also appeared in concert with Tom Chapin and John McCutcheon, the River City Brass Band, Brigadoon with Point Park College and the Civic Light Opera at the Benedum in Pittsburgh.
A New York Times reviewer described Balderose as having a “virtuoso’s gift.”
Additionally, Balderose is a four-time winner of the MacCrimmon Quaich for Grande One piping and also of the Grande One trophy at the Ligonier Highland Games, three times consecutively.
In 1981, Balderose was awarded the Senior Certificate in Piping from the College of Piping in Glasgow, Scotland and has been a member of the Governor of Pennsylvania’s Heritage Affairs Commissions Traditional and Ethnic Arts since 1989.
His piping has been recorded on H.K. Hilner’s Dream Cathedral, the Dewar’s Bagpipe Festival recording, A Celtic Christmas on the KRB label.
Balderose has his own recording, “Bagpipe Music Selections: Great Highland Pipes and Smallpipes” and is a featured artist on the video, “Road to the Isles.”
Currently, Balderose serves as a trustee of the Clan Donald Educational and Charitable Trust.
“I always loved the sounds of pipes,” said Balderose, noting his mother’s nationality was that of Scots-Irish.
“It’s music invokes many feelings so very basic to the human nature, from festive joyfulness to steadfast determination to mournful sorrow and pathos.”