Dance to the Piper

Barry Shears examines the history and traditions of Gaelic-speaking pipers whose emigration to Nova Scotia ensured that the role and music of Highland piping not only survived, but thrived for a long time. Dance to the Piper provides historical background and provides numerous biographical sketches of key figures in the Nova Scotia tradition and analyzes why this cultural reality endured in Nova Scotia. It also examines the social, economic and cultural developments which altered the status, role and perception of the piper in society, and their eventual decline. Shears shows an abiding respect for those tradition bearers and Dance to the Piper represents more than twenty years of research, interviews and recordings of the last of the traditional-style pipers in Nova Scotia.