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Bagpipes and baguettes Oldfield takes talents to France BY TOM SCHUMAN
WO TERRY Oldfield wondered if he had the physical and mental stamina to meet all the requirements to play the bagpipes in the 2024 Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, Calif. YEARS AGO, The Rancho El Dorado resident passed that long-awaited test with flying colors, only to T
Prestigious because the Hugh O’Conor Memorial Pipe Band, based in Tucson, was the only U.S. group invited to the 10-day event. The festival celebrates the seven Celtic regions — Ireland, Scotland, Isle of Man, Wales, Cornwall, Brittany and Galicia which share deep historical and cultural ties to Celtic traditions. Grueling because it involved four parades, five concerts and five lengthy “music nights,” along with several other performances during the early August celebration. Oldfield had never participated in the music nights before, but quickly learned they began at 9 p.m., featured his band from roughly 10:45 to 11:30 p.m., and concluded with a finale around 1:30 a.m. “That was the most difficult,” he recalled, speaking of stamina. “For me and some of the other older guys, our goal was to get a shower and go to bed. I would get up in the morning, go down to the lobby of the dorm where we were staying and some of the young kids had been up all night. “It was very busy — but a fun busy.” Before the trip, Oldfield wrestled with some of the same doubts that had surfaced a year earlier. “I think, more or less, I surprised myself. Am I going to be able to learn all this new music and memorize it?” were the primary concerns. “As I practiced more, I became confident I could keep up.” Part of the team Oldfield credits Len Wood, pipe major of the Hugh O’Conor Memorial Pipe Band and an internationally recognized performer, with fueling much of his drive. Oldfield had reached out to Wood — whom he had known only by reputation — for help learning the new music required for the 2024 Rose Parade performance. “I said to Len in June 2024 that I might be interested in joining a band. The next thing I knew he drafted me, said we were practicing such and such days and that was it. Last August we were not sounding very good, but Len turned us unto a good band.” Wood began playing at age 12 and was already teaching others as a teenager. Like Oldfield, he served in the Navy and is also
lose the love of his life, wife Bonnie, less than three weeks later to brain cancer. You may remember this story from the May 2024 issue of InMaricopa . Now 78, Oldfield has doubled down on his musical efforts, culminating in his recent, grueling participation in the prestigious Festival Interceltique de Lorient in Brittany, France.
Clockwise: Combined bands from Arizona and Limerick, Ireland. | Oldfield and small group band playing on a private yacht. | Hugh O’Conor Memorial Pipe Band performing in France.
a widower. The two have grown close, with Oldfield proud to note he is the oldest member of the band — by just one month over Wood. The Hugh O’Conor Memorial Pipe Band is named after an exiled Irishman who founded Presidio San Agustín del Tucson, which later became Tucson, in 1775. The band performed in late August at Tucson’s 250th anniversary celebration. Formed in 2006, the band had been dormant from 2012 to 2021 before Wood revived it. Today, its members come from Tucson, Flagstaff, Phoenix, Scottsdale and beyond. Several even fly in from Seattle, Oldfield said. The group practiced every Sunday for more than a year in Scottsdale, where several local firefighters are part of the roster, and held a fundraising concert last year to help cover travel costs. Making the music One of the new tunes Wood introduced to the band was titled Festival Interceltique les Cousins d’Amérique , a piece commissioned especially for the French festival’s host city. That may have
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“I had heard since the renovations that it was really beautiful. Everything is bright and the stained glass pops out. There is still work going on outside, but the restoration methods used inside were similar to when it was built in the 12th century.” Oldfield also visited the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe and the Church of the Sacred Heart. Those stops came after several days spent assisting a fellow musician who fell and broke her hip on the last day of the trip. He made sure she was well cared for and
worked with the insurance company to arrange her safe return to the U.S. The experience, he said, taught him a valuable lesson: Purchasing travel insurance for such a trip is well worth it, as it proved invaluable for his bandmate. Back home, Oldfield hasn’t given up on forming a small pipe band in Maricopa. He has a few interested players and has given presentations at local high schools. He calls it a work in progress. Given his track record, determination and love of music, don’t count him out.
Terry Oldfield extended his French adventure by a few days with a visit to Paris beginning Aug. 10. His first trip there had been in the mid-1980s while serving in the U.S. Navy. “One of my main goals was to see the new Notre-Dame Cathedral,” he said, referencing the rebuilding that has taken place since a devastating fire in 2019. “I remembered going into the cathedral back then and it was like a tomb, really dark.
Terry Oldfield in his home with his instruments of choice.
InMaricopa.com | October 2025
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October 2025 | InMaricopa.com
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