The Pittsburgh Piping Society

Instructors

The Pittsburgh Piping Society is excited to confirm the following instructors for the 2026 Jimmy McIntosh Piobaireachd Workshop Weekend.

Nick Hudson

Nick Hudson teaches piping at St. Thomas’ Episcopal School in Houston, Texas. He holds a BFA in Music Performance from Carnegie-Mellon University, where he studied under Jimmy McIntosh and Alasdair Gillies, and studies with Mike Cusack. Nick’s solo piping highlights include the Clasp, Gold Medal, A MSR, B MSR, and Overall Quaich at the Northern Meeting; the A S/R, and the Silver Medal at the Argyllshire Gathering; 3rd Overall at the Glenfiddich, with three appearances; the London Ram’s Head Snuff Mull for A-Grade Piobaireachd; twice the Overall A-Grade Winner at the SPSL Contest in London; the Braemar Gold Medal; the Piobaireachd Society Gold Medal (Canada); the US Piping Foundation Overall, Piobaireachd, and MSR on multiple occasions; the Gold Medal MSR at Winter Storm; the Kemble Star for Marches and Peter MacFarquhar Star for Strathspeys & Reels at Skye Gathering in Portree; overall winner of The Livingstone Invitational; and overall winner of The Metro Cup. Aside from piping, Nick enjoys bicycling and has cycled coast-to-coast across the United States. He resides in Houston with his wife, Amanda, and their son, Alan.

Mike Cusack

Mike Cusack began studying the pipes at the age of ten at St. Thomas’ Episcopal School in Houston, Texas.

He began studying with Jimmy McIntosh in 1980. Upon graduating from Vanderbilt University in 1983, he returned to St. Thomas’ and served as Band Director until 2005. Under his direction the school pipe band won the Juvenile World Pipe Band Championships in Scotland in 1985, 1995, 1998, and 2004.

He is the only American to have won both of the Highland Society of London’s Gold Medals at the Argyllshire Gathering at Oban (1984) and the Northern Meetings at Inverness (1987).

He has won almost every major Scottish award.

He won the Senior Piobaireachd at the Argyllshire Gathering three times.

Mike has won the March, Strathspey and Reel and the Piobaireachd events at the prestigious Glenfiddich Invitational Championship. This championship hosts the top ten players in the world and Mike has played in it eight times in ten years, finishing in the top three six times.

In 1997, Mike became the first American to win the coveted Gold Clasp at the Northern Meetings in Inverness.

That same year he also won the Oban Senior Piobaireachd, and London Bratach Gorm.

In August of 2000, he won the Macallan Trophy at the Interfestival Celtique in Lorient, Brittany.

His other piping accomplishments include:

  • Winner of the United States Piping Foundation Championship (11 times)
  • Winner of the St. Andrew’s Society of Philadelphia’s Gold Medal (4 times)
  • Winner of the Jock MacDonald Memorial Clasp in Portree, Isle of Skye (2 times)
  • Only American to perform at the Silver Chanter Recital at Dunvegan Castle (3 times)

Mike has conducted workshops and recitals throughout the United States, Canada, Australia and Europe. He produced two St. Thomas’ Episcopal School Pipe Band recordings, Dedication (1998) and Impressions (2002), both of which were named pipe band recording of the year by Piper and Drummer Magazine. Mike also released a solo recording for the Pipers of Distinction Series on the Monarch recording label.

In 2005, Mike retired from competitive piping when he became Headmaster at St. Thomas’ Episcopal School. Mike retired as Headmaster in 2022.

Andrew Carlisle

Andrew with Jimmy and Joyce McIntosh

Andrew Carlisle is originally from Ballygowan, Northern Ireland and joined the Carnegie Mellon School of Music faculty in 2010. That same year, he began studying piobaireachd under the guidance of Jimmy McIntosh.

Andrew has performed in over twenty countries, across four continents; most notably at The White House in 2008, and in front of 50,000 people at the Oz Stadium in Sydney, Australia in 2010.

He is one of the world’s leading solo pipers and has won numerous prestigious awards including:

  • The Gillies Cup for Piobaireachd, London, UK (one of the most coveted prizes in solo piping)
  • The A Grade Strathspey and Reel at the Argyllshire Gathering, Oban, Scotland
  • The A Grade Piobaireachd and Overall at the Cowal Highland Gathering, Dunoon, Scotland
  • Five United States Piping Foundation Championship wins
  • The Macallan Trophy on three occasions, Lorient, Brittany, France
  • William Livingstone Memorial, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
  • The Gordon Duncan Memorial on two occasions
  • The British Army Championships, Edinburgh, Scotland
  • Three All-Ireland titles at Senior level

For twenty years, Andrew has been an active member of the world renowned Field Marshal Montgomery Pipe Band, sharing in the success of over forty-five major championship wins, including ten World Pipe Band Championship wins. He has been featured as a soloist on the band’s Re:Charged and Impact albums.

Since 2012, Andrew has been the Artistic Director, Pipe Major and Senior Arranger for the annual Virginia International Tattoo; a production involving 900 performers held eight times each April in the 8,000 seat Scope Arena in Norfolk, Virginia.

Andrew has been a qualified adjudicator for solo piping and pipe bands with the Eastern United States Pipe Band Association since 2010.

Andrew was the featured artist in a one hour television program recorded by the BBC in 2016 entitled ‘The Castle Session’ performing the Great Highland Bagpipe, Scottish Border Pipes, Scottish Smallpipes, low whistle and penny whistle

Since arriving in 2010, Andrew has transformed the Carnegie Mellon University Pipes and Drums into one of the leading pipe bands in the United States. In August 2025, the band took 2nd and 5th place wins, respectively, in the European and World Pipe Band Championships.