BATAVORUM pipes and
Drums
Batavorum Pipes and Drums was initiated
at march 31 2000 by a group of enthousiastic people.
Soon
enough people were interested in forming a band and after the
official founding meeting at octobre 4th 2000, the legal
papers were signed at november 5th 2000.
Batavorum Pipes
and Drums was born.
After more than a year of
practicing under the leadership of Pipe Major Raymond de
Lange, the first performance was given at a neighbourhood
festival at january the 13th 2002 in Beuningen, a town near
Nijmegen.
The first contest was great success: a first
place in grade 5 at the BAG Open Championships in Schotten
(Germany) in 2003.
Already Batavorum Pipes and Drums
is wellknown in the area for its participation in the
International Four Days Marches, its annual open days with
visits and performances of other bands, and many more
events.
For instance in october 2004 the band played Mull
of Kintyre with the Beatles cover band in Gürzenich in Köln
(Germany) during the Beatles Classic Night.
Highlight
of the past years was also the participation in the Pipefest
2005 at Edinburg, where they performed with an enthousiastic
group.
Like many bands Batavorum started in a room of
the house of the parents of one of the initiators. Soon they
moved to a location that could host more people, and after
more moves we're now practicing on wednesdays and saturdays in
a large school, The SSGN, where there's enough room to
practice in little groups and with the band as a
whole.
The band consists now of 56 members: a
children's chanter group; a beginners, and intermediate group,
the performing group and a contest group.
Artistic
leadership is still in the capable hands of Tom
Thorpe.
