Spotlight on a Gaelic Tutor - Randy Waugh

This month we feature the multi-talented Randy Waugh as a friend of the Scottish Society of Ottawa. Randy has been our enthusiastic Gaelic (Gàidhlig) instructor and has been giving lessons on Monday and Friday evenings since September, much to the pleasure of his students.  Randy has also helped us on-stage in the past as a co-host of Hogman-eh! ‘19.

Randy attended and participated in Gàidhlig classes at The Atlantic Gaelic Academy and The Gaelic College (Cape Breton), The US National Mòd (Ligonier, Pennsylvania), The Royal National Mòd (Stornoway and Inverness, Scotland) and attended Sabhal Mòr Ostaig (Isle of Skye, Scotland) for five years. Now a fluent speaker, he shares his knowledge with members of the SSO, and has been a part-time professor of Scottish Gàidhlig Language and Culture at The University of Ottawa for many years.

Randy is from Callander, Ontario, and is a descendant of highland (Islay and Tiree) and lowland (Edinburgh, Alloa Clackmannanshire) Scots.  Randy is a true renaissance man. He has toured/tours as a rock musician; trained as a commercial pilot; is a published novelist (under pen name Gil Waugh); has conducted missing person, criminal and insurance investigations as a licensed private investigator; and designed, developed, secured and managed corporate computing networks.  He is a published poet, crime novelist and non-fiction author. He is intensely interested in the multidisciplinary approach of cognitive science and its everyday life applications, particularly those with the potential to help improve quality of life for the disabled.

 In 2009, Randy revived the Ottawa Gaelic Society into Comunn Gàidhlig Ottawa, formed the award-winning Ar n-Òran Gàidhlig choir who performed and won awards in Canada, USA and Scotland, and for seven years, organized and ran the Mòd Chanada Scottish Gàidhlig festival in Ottawa. He also served for a year as vice-president of the American Gàidhlig society.

Randy plays an array of musical instruments including trumpet, bass guitar, the great highland bagpipe, Scottish small-pipes, Irish whistles. Randy has performed in many venues with many acts internationally and has appeared on many recordings, television and radio playing various instruments and singing over the past 45 years.

Currently, Randy runs a busy bagpipe studio (Westend Bagpipe Studio) and youth pipe band (Thuirle Thairle Youth Pipes & Drums) and is the artistic director/composer/multi-instrumentalist and tours with the increasingly popular Celtic hard rock band Fiùran (Sapling). He now spends most of his time writing, composing, recording and touring with Fiùran, and sharing his tremendous knowledge. He is a Piping and Drumming Qualifications Board of Scotland (PDQB) certified bagpipe tutor, and teaches Great Highland Bagpipes, Scottish Small Pipes, Scottish Border Pipes … and he teaches Scottish Gaelic classes!

Fresh off the presses: His band Fiùran will be releasing their latest album on March 12.