Four new members of the Ashburton Pipe Band were competing at their first pipe band festival in their hometown of Ashburton on Sunday.
Brothers Ma-ake and Tisi Vaipulu, aged 11 and 9, Nickola Forde, 11, and Charlotte McDowell, 12, have joined the grade 4B band.
Both Ma-ake and Tisi are drummers, while Nickola and Charlotte are pipers.
The four have spent weeks perfecting their performances ahead of the annual Ashburton Festival of Pipe Band Music competition in the Ashburton Domain.
They were kitted out in freshly pressed white shirts, black vests and tartan kilts to stand among their fellow pipe band members.
The four are new primary/ intermediate aged members of the band, and their first appearance in the competition was in the street march event, along paths of the domain.
The brothers joined so they could compete alongside each other, Tisi said.
It was a different story for Nickola and Charlotte who both started learning to play the bagpipes individually when they were 10.
They then started learning together, before joining up.
Nickola, whose father Patrick is a drummer in the band, said taking up the drums had not been an option for her as she preferred the sound of the pipes.
Charlotte said she had been attending pipe band festivals as a spectator with her parents from a young age and been drawn to take up the pipes.
The skirl of pipes and the beat of the drums saw many spectators drawn to the domain for the competition. Competing were Ashburton Pipe Band, South Canterbury, McAlpines North Canterbury and two bands from Christchurch.
They each did march, set and medley events under the watchful eyes of judges Greg Wilson (piping) and Jamie McEwan (drumming).
Hosted by the Ashburton Pipe Band, the competition saw the bands compete in temperatures up to 28 degrees on the domain’s Royal Lawn.
It was an idyllic setting and good preparation for the bands ahead of provincial pipe band competitions at Deans Bush in Christchurch this weekend, and nationals in Invercargill on March 7 and 8.
