VIP piper Craig Weir with singer Beverley Knight at The Hunter Foundation event last night.
Angus piper Craig Weir has added Michelle Obama to his long list of VIP audience members.
Last night he played a variety of traditional Scottish songs to welcome her to a fundraising dinner at the EICC in Edinburgh organised by Sir Tom Hunter’s charity The Hunter Foundation.
The former First Lady joins a long list of famous names the 25-year-old Young Scot award-winner and primary school teacher has played for, including the Dalai Lama, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Arun Gandhi, Queen, the Bay City Rollers, Sir Billy Connolly, Sir Andy Murray, Lorraine Kelly, The MOBOs and the Libertines.
Speaking about the event, Craig said: ”I’m greatly honoured to have been asked to play at this event as I admire the work Michelle Obama has done for charity over the years. Michelle’s words during the evening were very powerful and moving and it was incredible to hear her speak about her experience as First Lady of the USA.
Dalai Lama
“It’s also a privilege to be asked to play for The Hunter Foundation, which does great work in Scotland. It was a great event and one I’m very proud to have been involved.”
Craig’s VIP playlist began when he composed a tune for and played it to the Dalai Lama when he visited Dundee in June 2012. He also played Happy Birthday to Gandhi’s grandson Arun over Skype in 2014 and has played for Queen in 2015 and the VIPs at the MOBOs in Glasgow in 2013 and 2016.
In 2016 he played for and met Billy Connolly and Alan Cumming while taking part in NYC Tartan Week as a World Peace Tartan Ambassador and had the honour of playing at the 911 Memorial. Earlier that year he’d played for Arnold Schwarzenegger at an event in Edinburgh and with the Bay City Rollers on tour.
At just 25 Craig is already an internationally-recognised piper in his own right with performances in the USA, Switzerland, France, Belgium, China and Germany to date. At the age of eight his uncle Jack handed him a set of pipes and urged him to have a go. Since then he’s never looked back.
New York Tartan Week
His reputation had grown so much that in 2015 he was asked to play the pipes at Lorraine Kelly’s Scottish BAFTAs special award presentation, Andy Murray’s honorary graduation at Stirling University (at the request of Judy Murray) and join Babyshambles and The Libertines on stage. He’s also played at New York Tartan Week every years since 2016.
At home Craig is Pipe Sergeant of the Arbroath Royal British Legion Pipe Band and is frontman for four-piece Celtic rock band Gleadhraich. Their list of celebrity fans include Scots music legend Dougie Maclean and Gordon Strachan and they’ve played support for Jai McDowall, Donnie Munro, ex-AC/DC drummer Chris Slade and Skerryvore.
Last year he called on a few of his famous friends to lend their voices to the first single from his new band, Craig Weir & The Cabalistic Cavalry. 21 of them – from Brian May of Queen and Les McKeown of The Bay City Rollers to Kyle Falconer of The View, Peter Doherty, Lorraine Kelly and Alan Cumming – did so, each reading a line from a poem at the start and finish of their debut single The Highland Road.
Away from the stage, Craig is a primary school teacher at Our Lady’s Primary in Dundee. He and his band Gleadhraich are one of the headline acts at Carnoostival this weekend.