We are pleased to announce that this year's Clan MacGillivray Novice Piper Award has been given to Jasmine Hofen.
Having shown outstanding skill at last month's Victorian Piper's Association Championship, Clan MacGillivray Australia is proud to award our annual prize to this promising young piper.
Read Jasmine's piping story below. Congratulations Jasmine!
My name is Jasmine Hofen. This is the beginning of my piping journey.
I have been involved in everything Scottish from the age of 4 when I started Scottish Highland dancing. I continued this for about 7 years.
Since I stopped Highland dancing, I didn’t want to lose my Scottish culture, so I decided to pursue the bagpipes. My grand dad was a piper before passing away in 2013.
I started about a year and a half ago when I joined the Frankston RSL Pipeband and I have loved every moment. It took me three months to get from chanter to my first set of pipes.
During my short journey, I have played with the Pipe band on occasions such as Anzac Day, attended numerous workshops, performed a couple of times at my high school and began competing in the solo competitions where I became the 2017 Novice Victorian Champion. I hope to see myself playing in a grade one Pipe Band at the Worlds sometime in the future.
Learning the pipes has brought me many challenges and positive experiences. I have also met some wonderful people not only from Australia, but other parts of the world who I hope to become life long friends with. It has been a great journey so far and I can’t wait to see what the future holds.
