Festival Stages

Pipe Dream is a new group made up of four pipers who met at GMHG on the competition field and in the campground, and were all students at the NAAPD.They all play Highland Bagpipes and diversified their musical abilities early in life with fiddle, guitar, flutes, and singing.

Mary Elizabeth McQueen was in the prize list for the US Scottish Fiddle Championship and was taught by Brian McNeil and John Taylor. She went to UNC Wilmington for International Studies and now lives and works near Kerrville TX where she is in the band Clandestine with her father Gregory. She came to NC from the age of 11 for more than a decade studying at the NAAPD and competing at GMHG.

David McLeod graduated from Clemson University in Bio-electrical engineering and recently received his PhD in biomedical engineering from George Washington University in May.He plays pipes each autumn at Revel Grove in Annapolis MD and is a prolific songwriter and singer who grew up performing and competing at GMHG.

Alex Stewart is a WNC native and multi-instrumentalist who graduated with honors from University of North Carolina at Greensboro on a full scholarship for oboe performance. For the past few years, Alex has worked for the Abell Flute Co making high end flutes and toured with Peter Mayer’s Stars and Promises Christmas Tour playing five different instruments. He plays all the Celtic winds as well as percussion and has two cats who sadly do not enjoy his bagpipes.

Michael McLeod studying dentistry at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in Charleston. He was a student of Jimmy McIntosh and the youngest piper ever to play in the professional grade at the US Piping Foundation.An accomplished singer and guitar player, he working as a solo balladeer at Highland Games across the South in 2021 playing his own arrangements of Scottish songs and original folk music.