History Series: Born and raised in Kingston, Chris started taking drumming around 1981, having followed his big brother around to practices and competitions for several years prior to that. His first instructor was Ian Craig, who was a corps drummer with the Rob Roy Pipe Band, and he was extremely fortunate to have experienced instruction from many exceptional players and instructors who were available at the time. These included, but not limited to, Dave Danskin, Elizabeth Danskin, Al Savage, Hugh Cameron, Harvey Dawson, and Graham Kirkwood.
Chris had considerable success during his solo career. He credits a good deal of his success to having an incredibly stable and reliable piper at every contest – his brother Scott. Chris won the Pipers and Pipe Band Society of Ontario (PPBSO) Champion Supreme award for Grades 4, 3, and 2 in consecutive years in the mid 1980’s. He followed this with some consistent prizes in Grade 1 before moving to professional ranks around 2000 when he would eventually win Champion Supreme again in 2015.
Chris has overseen the Rob Roy drum corps for the better part of the past 32 years. He has had the pleasure of leading his corps to many prizes in both band and drum corps categories. Without a doubt, his favourite, and most cherished memory, was the 2016 version of the band, where Chris led a corps filled almost entirely with players he had