Eric Rigler is an American player of the

Uilleann pipes The uilleann pipes ( or , ) are the characteristic national bagpipe of Ireland. Earlier known in English as "union pipes", their current name is a partial translation of the Irish language terms (literally, "pipes of the elbow"), from their ...

Great Highland Bagpipes The Great Highland bagpipe ( gd, a' phìob mhòr "the great pipe") is a type of bagpipe native to Scotland, and the Scottish analogue to the Great Irish Warpipes. It has acquired widespread recognition through its usage in the British Armed ...

, and

tin whistle The tin whistle, also called the penny whistle, is a simple six-holed woodwind instrument. It is a type of fipple flute, putting it in the same class as the recorder, Native American flute, and other woodwind instruments that meet such criteria. ...

. He performs as a solo artist and with the band

Bad Haggis Bad Haggis is a Celtic band with roots in Scottish music. The American group is led by piper Eric Rigler, who has played on dozens of movie soundtracks. A tune by Bad Haggis was used in the first season of Crossing Jordan, and pipes and whistles ...

, and has been featured on a number of movie

soundtrack A soundtrack is recorded music accompanying and synchronised to the images of a motion picture, drama, book, television program, radio program, or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack o ...

s.Eric Rigler
/ref> He has been described as "the most recorded bagpiper of all time".CD Baby: BADHAGGIS: Ark
/ref> He has been playing all forms of

bagpipes Bagpipes are a woodwind instrument using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. The Great Highland bagpipes are well known, but people have played bagpipes for centuries throughout large parts of Europe, No ...

and tin whistles since he was a child, performing solo, with bagpipe bands and other musical groups. He has been featured playing Great Highland bagpipes, Uilleann pipes and tin whistle on numerous movie soundtracks, including ''

Titanic RMS ''Titanic'' was a British passenger liner, operated by the White Star Line, which sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on 15 April 1912 after striking an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, United ...

'', ''

Million Dollar Baby ''Million Dollar Baby'' is a 2004 American sports drama film directed, co-produced, scored by and starring Clint Eastwood from a screenplay written by Paul Haggis, based on stories from the 2000 collection ''Rope Burns: Stories from the Corner' ...

'', ''

Road to Perdition ''Road to Perdition'' is a 2002 American crime drama film directed by Sam Mendes. The screenplay was adapted by David Self from the graphic novel of the same name written by Max Allan Collins and illustrated by Richard Piers Rayner. The film s ...

'', ''

Braveheart ''Braveheart'' is a 1995 American historical drama film directed and produced by, and starring Mel Gibson. Gibson portrays Sir William Wallace, a late-13th century Scottish warrior who led the Scots in the First War of Scottish Independence ag ...

'', ''

Cinderella Man ''Cinderella Man'' is a 2005 American biographical sports drama film directed by Ron Howard, titled after the nickname of world heavyweight boxing champion James J. Braddock and inspired by his life story. The film was produced by Howard, Penn ...

'', ''

Robots "\n\n\n\n\nThe robots exclusion standard, also known as the robots exclusion protocol or simply robots.txt, is a standard used by websites to indicate to visiting web crawlers and other web robots which portions of the site they are allowed to visi ...

'', '' Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me'', ''

The Prince of Egypt ''The Prince of Egypt'' is a 1998 American animated musical drama film produced by DreamWorks Animation and released by DreamWorks Pictures. The first feature film from DreamWorks to be traditionally animated, it is an adaptation of the Bo ...

'', and '' Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World''. His music was frequently used on the NBC show ''

Crossing Jordan ''Crossing Jordan'' is an American crime drama television series created by Tim Kring, that aired on NBC from September 24, 2001, to May 16, 2007. It stars Jill Hennessy as Dr. Jordan Cavanaugh, a crime-solving forensic pathologist employed in ...

'', and his arrangement of an Irish tune was used as its opening theme during the first season. He was also featured on the

USA Network USA Network (simply USA) is an American basic cable television channel owned by the NBCUniversal Television and Streaming division of Comcast's NBCUniversal through NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment. It was originally launched in 1977 as Madison ...

in the 2006

Victoria's Secret Victoria's Secret is an American lingerie, clothing, and beauty retailer known for high visibility marketing and branding, starting with a popular catalog and followed by an annual fashion show with supermodels dubbed Angels. As the largest ret ...

fashion show, playing the bagpipes for the Highland romance sequence and for the AFI Lifetime Achievement celebration for

Sean Connery Sir Sean Connery (born Thomas Connery; 25 August 1930 – 31 October 2020) was a Scottish actor. He was the first actor to portray fictional British secret agent James Bond on film, starring in seven Bond films between 1962 and 1983. Origina ...

. Rigler played "Amazing Grace" at former President

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...

's funeral in 2004. Rigler plays pipes and whistles in the Celtic world fusion band he formed,

, based in Southern California. He occasionally performs with Los Angeles-based rock band

the Young Dubliners The Young Dubliners (sometimes shortened to the Young Dubs or just The Dubs) is an Irish-American rock band formed in Santa Monica, California in 1988. Lead singer and rhythm guitarist Keith Roberts has remained the only constant member of the ba ...

. Rigler wrote the tunes "The B-52" and "Walking the Plank", which are performed by the World Pipe Band Champion

Field Marshal Montgomery Pipe Band The Field Marshal Montgomery Pipe Band is a competitive grade one pipe band from Lisburn, Northern Ireland named in honour of Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery of Alamein. The band has won the World Pipe Band Championships 13 times, making it th ...

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

, the

Los Angeles Scottish Pipe Band The Los Angeles Scots Pipe Band, or, more commonly, the LA Scots, is a pipe band located in Orange County, California. The LA Scots have competed at the grade one level since 1998. In February 2018, the Western United States Pipe Band Associatio ...

, and other top level bagpipe bands throughout the world. On February 12, 2013, San Bernardino County Sheriff's Detective Jeremiah MacKay was killed on duty near Big Bear, California in a firefight. Rigler played a special tribute at his funeral on February 21, 2013, along with 130 other bagpipers and drummers to honor the fallen officer. MacKay was the department's official bagpiper, who had performed at the funerals of other officers. In 2016, Rigler performed on

Dream Theater Dream Theater is an American progressive metal band formed in 1985 under the name Majesty by John Petrucci, John Myung and Mike Portnoy while they attended Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. They subsequently dropped out of the ...

's song "The X Aspect," on their album ''

The Astonishing ''The Astonishing'' is the thirteenth studio album by American progressive metal band Dream Theater, released on January 29, 2016 through Roadrunner Records. It is the band's second concept album, with a story conceived by guitarist John Pet ...

'', marking the first use of bagpipes in a Dream Theater recording.

References

External links

badhaggis.com
The band's regularly updated homepage.
yahoo.com
More information about the movie history of Eric Rigler and Bad Haggis
Eric Rigler at Rhapsody
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rigler, Eric American folk musicians Living people Musicians from California Place of birth missing (living people) Year of birth missing (living people) Great Highland bagpipe players