David Brewer, a Scottish descendent and native of Oregon, discovered traditional music on public radio at the age of 11. He soon began attending concerts and music sessions in Santa Cruz’s thriving Celtic music scene. Brewer began studying the music with local teachers at age 13 and before long had a regular gig playing weekend nights at a hopping Irish pub, where he honed his well-known wild highland bagpipe performances.

After four years of consistently drawing large crowds, his local fame reached a new level when his bagpipes were stolen from the pub. The pipes where never recovered, but the community came together and raised enough money to not only replace the stolen pipes, but also send David to Scotland to study with master teachers. Upon returning, David teamed up with Pete Haworth to launch Molly’s Revenge.

While performing on his own, David Brewer has been a featured soloist at Barra Feis Piping Recital in Scotland, toured nationally with Tomaseen Foley’s Celtic Christmas Show as the featured uilleann piper, been a featured highland piper with both the North State and Napa Valley Symphonies, and was a special guest of the six-time Grammy winning group The Chieftains.

David has been contracted to play pipes, bodhran, and whistles for indie films, commercials, and most recently the PBS special on Andrew Jackson. As a solo artist, Brewer appeared twice on the Bruce Latimer Musical Variety Show aired on San Francisco television, including a special appearance on the 800th anniversary show. He has appeared as a guest artist on over a dozen studio nalbums of various musical styles, and has composed over 200 original tunes. He released his first solo album Living Tradition in 2004, and it features several of the tunes he has composed. David’s music is regularly aired on NPR radio.

David Brewer is not only a multi-talented performer but also an avid teacher. He is the founder of the St. Andrew’s Academy concert series; he is on faculty for the Community Music School of Santa Cruz; and he has taught at several notable workshops including the Pebble Beach Piping School and Sebastopol Celtic Music Festival. He has been a guest lecturer on bagpipe history at UC Santa Cruz. Brewer continues to teach privately; several of his students have received accolades from the National Piping Centre of Glasgow, Scotland, and others have gone on to successful solo careers.

Brewer credits much of his success to his studies in Celtic music at the Ceolas School in Scotland, and his music theory training from Cabrillo College in California, as well as to many notable teachers along the way.