About us

We are a family owned and operated business, run by Kate & Mark Cushing We are dedicated to producing the highest quality instruments with a primary focus on function, affordability, and tonal quality. We live on a 150 acre farm in the remote western end of New York State, where we make bagpipes, music, and raise Shetland sheep.

Mark was started in piping at the age of 14 by William MacRae in his nearby hometown of Alfred, NY. He then had the good fortune to go to Invermark college of Piping in the late 1960’s where he studied with Donald Lindsay, R. U Brown, and R.B. Nicol. Later, he taught at Invermark for a few years, and went to Scotland to study further with Mr. Nicol. He has taught at Wesleyan College, and has worked with various bands around New York State as well as Northern Pennsylvania. He has also continued to take individual students wherever he has lived. His love of the music, and piobaireachd in particular, has led to his devoting a good portion of his life to the study, teaching, playing and making of the Great Highland Bagpipe.

Kate was already a professional cellist when she started playing the pipes. This was around the same time as Mark started, but in southern California where she grew up. She continued to devote the bulk of her large musical talent to the cello through the years, but has kept her hand in on the pipes. She also plays celtic harp, accordion, and fiddle, not to mention piano! She has had 8 amazing children, the youngest of which – our daughter Elspeth - is still at home. Kate keeps the business together financially, makes the bags and bag covers, and pitches in around the shop predominately helping in the production of practice chanters.

Mark made his first set of pipes in 1972 and has been making them ever since. Quite a bit of research has gone into the development of the tone/ bore design of the instruments over the years. Never satisfied meerly to copy some instrument with known desirable qualities, he has always used that as a starting point for trying to understand what makes a particular bore design work. After coming to some degree of understanding of the correlation between the physical and tonal aspects of a given bore design, this has gradually made the way clear to “tweak” various aspects of the bore system to accentuate certain aspects of the tone. This has evolved into an instrument of very high quality, and refined tone.

We have imported our first African Blackwood log, and are currently putting together a dehumidification wood kiln. This should give us wood with a greater consistency, and should yield a better, more stable bagpipe.