| Steven McWhirter | |
| Birth Date: | 1983 |
| Birth Place: | Ballymena, Northern Ireland |
| Instrument: | snare drum |
Steven McWhirter is a pipe band drummer from Northern Ireland. He has won multiple World Championship titles as a solo performer and as part of band. He is the lead drummer for the Inveraray & District Pipe Band.
McWhirter was born in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, in 1983.[1]
He joined the Cullybackey Pipe Band in Northern Ireland in 1994,[2] and also played with the Warrnambool & District Pipe Band in Australia.[1] When he joined Cullybackey he played the tenor drum, before moving on to play the snare.[1]
Cullybackey won the Grade 2 World Championships in 2002, and J. Reid Maxwell invited him to join the Simon Fraser University Pipe Band in British Columbia.[3] He played with Simon Fraser University every summer until 2008, winning the Grade 1 World Drum Corps Championship in 2004 and 2008, as well as the overall World Pipe Band Championships in 2008.[2]
In 2008 he moved to Scotland to join the Inveraray & District Pipe Band as leading drummer.[4] [2] Inveraray won all five major championships in Grade 2 in 2009, and were promoted to Grade 1 for 2010.[5] [6] In 2014, Inveraray won its first Major at the European Championships, held in Forres.[7]
McWhirter won the under-15 World Solo Championships in 1997 and 1998, and the World Solo Drumming Championships in 2006,[8] 2011,[9] 2012, 2013,[10] 2014, 2015,[11] 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019. He currently holds the record for most consecutive World Solo Drumming Championship wins.[12] [1] [2]
He has taught at schools, including Dollar Academy[13] and The Edinburgh Academy.