When someone reaches out to Jackie Lewis because they’re interested in learning how to play the bagpipes, the 41-year-old from Georgia, Vermont, starts with a warning.
“I've played a lot of other instruments — and this one's by far the hardest,” she tells them. Songs must be played from memory; the instrument is physically demanding, and the pipes’ many intricate parts are temperamental and in constant need of adjustment.
But it’s that challenge, she said, that makes it so rewarding.
“It's a forever fight, but it's worth it in the end,” said Lewis, who has been playing since she was 15.
Last week, Lewis received a rare reward: She and Hazen Metro, a fellow Vermonter and member of Montpelier’s Catamount Pipe Band, competed at the World Pipe Band Championships in Glasgow, Scotland. Both won the top prize in their respective solo competitions.
Amateur pipers compete in different grade levels, with Grade 4 considered entry level and Grade 1 being the most advanced. Hazen competed in Grade 1, and Lewis in Grade 2.
To compete, both had to play several songs in a variety of styles, including marches, dances and piobaireachd, a classical form also known as ceòl mòr or “big music.” Piobaireachd songs, which can last up to 20 minutes, increase in difficulty as you continue through the piece, according to Lewis.
Lewis won the same award back in 2011. But this year’s victory feels like a comeback. She took a break from the bagpipes for several years, starting in 2014, to deal with a chronic illness.
Lewis is trying to get a youth band started locally, and also wants to become a bagpipe competition judge, to help replace judges who are aging out. She wants to keep getting better, she said, to inspire more women to take up the pipes — and to contribute to a community that has supported her so much.
“That basically two people from Podunk, Vermont, you know, won these big awards on a global stage for piping,” she said, is “a total credit to our community.”
Lewis and Metro are headed back to the U.S., where they will be playing with the Catamount Pipe Band in a series of festivals across the Northeast this fall. In Vermont, the band will be playing at the Quechee Scottish Games and Festival this weekend.
