He's there for people who hear the call of the bagpipes

PITTSBURGH (AP) — In the majestic and magically lit First Presbyterian Church Downtown on New Year's Eve, Rev. Tom Hall concluded his remarks and announced what the assembled hundreds were waiting for.

In the pews, heads swiveled as the cranking strains and percussive thunder of bagpipers and drummers swept down the aisle playing "The Green Hills of Tyrol."

The band formed a line along the transept, with George Balderose at one end, beaming as the crowd cheered.

For more than 30 years, more people have paid this piper than any in the region to accompany their grief and celebration; to help them dedicate and break ground; to play concerts and festivals; for golf outings and corporate pow-wows and to teach them or their children how to play.

The bagpipe has existed in various iterations since ancient times, including in Rome, Persia and Ireland before they became associated mostly with Scotland.

Pipers marched into the fray with armed soldiers, and more than 1,000 were killed in World War I.

In 1996, a bagpiper defended himself for playing in a London park where live music was forbidden by using the centuries-old argument, that the bagpipe was a weapon of war.

None of his students has competed yet in the Balmoral Classic — an annual event he founded here in 2007, the country's only pipe and drum competition for players under 21.

Balderose co-founded the Balmoral School of Piping and Drumming in 1979 as a summer learning opportunity.

Balderose started the annual three-day Balmoral Classic to shine a light on the school, he said.

People who live near Balderose in Manchester may not know he is grooming pipers inside, with private and group lessons around a table in the parlor lit by the day through an arched bay window.

"The power of the sound, physically and emotionally, is magnified when you play," said Lacey Mahler, who graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a degree in music performance on clarinet.

[...] a music and band teacher in the Deer Lakes School District, she plays for her students, and several parents have asked about lessons for their children, she said.

Balderose was teaching political science at Stetson University in Florida, making and playing dulcimers in his spare time, when he returned to Pittsburgh in 1974 to take a job teaching dulcimer making at the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild.

To learn, he sought instruction from, among others, the world-renowned James McIntosh, whom he would later recruit to help him establish the Balmoral School.