During the 39th “Celtic Classic Highland Games & Festival,” through Sept. 27, Bethlehem, when the highlight bagpipe band competition is held, don’t even think about questioning the qualifications of one local judge.

Andrew Walker of Emmaus knows what he’s talking about.

Walker not only has spent his lifetime learning and playing the bagpipes, but last month, the pipe band in which he plays, The Ulster Scottish Pipe Band, won first place, World Pipe Band Championships, Grade 2, Glasgow, Scotland.

It was just the sixth United States pipe band to win since the contest began in 1947.

“Some of these folks in the band have been playing for a really long time, and I’ve been doing it since I was a kid, too,” Walker says. “So it’s really fun and rewarding to see everybody’s hard work kind of pay off in a first-place win.”

The “Celtic Classic” pipe band competition, which kicks off 1:30 p.m. Sept. 26 at the Piping Grove along Lehigh Street, Bethlehem, is a centerpiece of the festival, sponsored by the Celtic Cultural Alliance, which celebrates Celtic culture, food and music.

In the competition, bands, divided by ability levels, compete by carefully performing required tunes and are judged on tuning, tone, tempo, unison expression, execution and the blend of the pipes and drums.

Fifth generation

Bagpipes have been present throughout the life of Walker, 39, a 10th grade learning support teacher at Parkland High School, and long before; he’s a fifth-generation bagpiper.

He says that his great grandfather on his father’s side emigrated to the United States from Glasgow, Scotland, already a bagpiper. Walker has a set of bagpipes his forebearer had brought with him.

His grandfather and father, Scot Walker, also were accomplished players.

Scot Walker, who grew up in Erie and brought his family to Nazareth, then Emmaus, spent his career primarily as an individual player who performed in Scotland, Canada and the United States, where he was overall Eastern United States piping champion for “a bunch of years,” Andrew Walker says.

The father was among the group of people who helped found Celtic Fest, now “Celtic Classic,” around the time Andrew Walker was born.

“I believe he had a role in getting a piping competition situated for the event,” says Walker.

“As a local guy, I guess he had some connections, or people knew him, and he got on board with actually having a piping contest as part of the ‘Celtic Fest,’ because, obviously, that was his area of expertise.”

While he wasn’t directly involved in the festival as a tot, “I’ve been going for as long as I can remember,” Walker says. “Either my dad would be judging, or my dad would have a band playing. So I’ve been there way more years than I have not.”

Taught by dad

Walker began his formal training about age 5.

“As a little kid, I had the luxury of having my dad teach me,” he says. “It was really easy for me to take lessons because my dad was here.”

While others go to lessons for one hour once a week, “when you’re 5, that can be kind of demanding,” Walker says. “I could go for 10 minutes every day because I would just go down to the basement and learn from him. So that was definitely an advantage for me.”

His father “was able to also start slow and take his time with me, too. When you learn, you don’t just get the full instrument right away.

“You get just the piece that you do your finger work on, like a practice version that’s called a practice chanter, and then you work your way up to getting the full setup with the bag and what you think of when you hear bagpipes.

“But for me, that took years to get to that point because he was able to bring me along slowly because there was no rush,” Walker says. “You got to sit with him basically daily or whenever he had the opportunity to do so.”

Pipe band

Like his father, he started in individual competitions and “just worked my way up through the ranks.” As with bands, individual competitions are set up in grades by the Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association. Beginners are Grade 5, up through Grade 1, then the open or professional grade.

“So throughout my childhood years to teenage years, I kind of got to work my way up through the local competition circuits and work my way up through the grades,” Walker says. “And I traveled a little bit to Scotland and got to play a few individual contests when I was younger, as well.

“Just kind of getting the opportunity to take my time, really sharpen my skills, and work my way up through the grades throughout my childhood and teenage years was a lot of fun.”

He played with bands on and off, which he says, “as a kid, that was cool.” Some of the people with whom he played in bands are in the band in which he now plays.

The Ulster Scottish Pipe Band, based in Warminster, Bucks County, has members who “travel from all over to practice together, roughly one time a month, and meet together at the Hunter Solo Soccer Club” in Glenside, Montgomery County, Walker says.

“They’re probably the top organization that is considered local to me, so I’m definitely a local player, even though I’m about an hour away,” he says. “A lot of the band travels a lot farther than that.

“I know the leadership, I know a lot of the people in the band, and it’s a really good group. So it’s kind of like the natural spot.

“People come from all over the place to practice together. We put in our time at home, as well, making sure we have the music down, making sure we have our instruments functioning properly and sounding good, so that when we get to practice, we’re ready to go.”

Scotland contest

The Ulster Scottish Pipe Band competes in Grade 2, and last year won third place in the World Pipe Band Championships, and also went to Scotland and won the European Championships.

“We felt good about our chances [this year] just because we’ve been working really hard,” Walker says.

“We have great leadership, but, you know, anything can happen. We were really happy that we pulled it all together and had a great day.”

In August, The Ulster Scottish Pipe Band beat out 11 other finalists from Seattle, Scotland, Canada, France, New Zealand, Ireland and Australia, to place first in the World Pipe Band Championships, Grade 2. The win puts the band closer to qualifying for Grade 1.

Walker says it was “one of those really rewarding experiences as part of the team, too. So just that whole camaraderie as a group getting to win ... it was really cool.

“It was a lot of fun because I got to do something that I’ve been doing my whole life with a really good group of musicians. It was really cool to do it with a bunch of friends … It’s really exciting for us.”

Bagpipes teacher

Walker is a bagpipes instructor.

“I would do some private lessons where people would come to my house and I would teach them one-on-one for 45 minutes or an hour,” he says.

“There are also summer schools for bagpiping … organized and run by different people, and students go for a week and they stay at the school and they get instruction there, and it’s really good for them because they kind of get immersed in piping.

“And they have people available to help them set up their instruments, because that’s also a major part of playing. It’s not just the music, but setting up and maintaining your instruments.”

Walker’s taught for several years, a week or two during summer, at the North American Academy of Piping and Drumming in the western mountains of North Carolina, and other schools.

“And I honestly really enjoy that because I like the music, but it’s also, I think it’s really fun to help other people enjoy the music, as well, and see them improve,” he says. “As a teacher, that’s just kind of what I do. It’s really fun for me to be able to do that with music, as well.”

‘Celtic’ judge

Walker, an accredited bagpipe band competition judge for 10 years, is in his third time as a judge at “Celtic Classic.”

“They reached out to me just as somebody local, and I was really excited to do it because, like I said, this is kind of my hometown competition,” he says. “A lot of times when you judge, you have to travel, which is fun, but it’s nice to be doing one right here.”

It’s also where he served his judging certification, under the tutelage of accomplished judges.

The usual judges panel includes two who evaluate bagpiping, a drumming judge and an ensemble judge, who evaluates the band as a whole.

“Piping judges are listening for things like tuning of the instrument, tonal quality, playing in unison, playing together, accuracy of movements, things like that,” he says.

“The drumming judges are going to do that kind of thing for the drums, and then the ensemble judge kind of looks at the band as a whole.”

Celtic Classic information: https://celticfest.org/