About Us

THE EBELAIRE'S STORY

The EBelaire's creation was inspired by the desire to help a dear friend recover his ability to play the Bagpipe.  David comes from a family of Pipers, where his father served in the British Army piping around the world before emigrating to the United States. David and his brother Ian became excellent players in their own right under their father's tutelage.  Bruce met these inseparable brothers in 1994 and has counted them friends ever since.  

When David was diagnosed with a life threatening cancer in 2011, we all expected that the cost of the cure would be a permanent end to his playing career.  With that in mind, it took 10 years, but finally the technology, manufacturing tools and insights evolved.   We are very proud to have assembled this solution that now allows David to once again make music on his beloved pipes with his brother and friends.  In April of 2021 David and Bruce gatherd at Davids home and played together once again.  

But that is not the end of the story.  Insights led to additional improvements.  Eventually a complete redesign emerged from the original model that is more powerful, lighter, quieter, controllable and adaptable.  As we have worked on the EBelaire, we realized that it has much more general utility for the piping community as a tool for instruction. But perhaps its greatest value is to the many players who are sidelined each year because of disease, injury, mischance or age related changes.  EBelaire™ has a role to play in helping these performers regain the joy of having fun and making music.  

About  Bruce Ian Lazaroff

Bruce has been playing the bagpipes for 60+ years. His passion for the Great Highland Bagpipe led him to become an instructor of both bands and individuals for the last 30 of those years. He’s attended Highland and Scottish games up and down the east coast of the US competing both at an individual level and band level in Grades 5 - 2, for which he received many awards.

Bruce began playing the pipes at age 11 in New City, NY as part of a Boy Scout band. When he graduated HS and enrolled at Fordham University in the Bronx on a full scholarship, he began playing with The New York City Transit Police Pipes and Drums until 1975 when he graduated with an MS in Biology. He then began playing with the Tri-County Pipes and Drums of Bergen County, NJ.  

After moving to Vernon Connecticut, Bruce joined the renowned Manchester Pipe Band of Manchester Connecticut, the 2nd oldest Pipe Band in the US. There he received amazing tutelage under Pipe Major Charles (Chuck) Murdoch, and eventually qualified to compete with the Grade 2 band. He was soon recruited to lead and instruct the MPB Grade 5 Band which, in 1999, won the EUSPBA Northeast Championship beating a field of 99 bands from up and down the East Coast.

Bruce also began working with two other local bands, The Manchester Regional Police and Fire Pipe Band (MRPF) and The Trinity College Pipes and Drums of Hartford Connecticut, as both a band member and instructor up until 2016. During those years he prepared The MRPF band for two international tattoos; Fulda Germany in 2009 and Basel Switzerland in 2011. He not only taught the required music, but did the tuning for all the stage performances as well. While working with the Music Department of Trinity College in Hartford, he taught bagpiping as an adjunct professor and produced several shows of Celtic Music as band fundraisers.

Upon moving to Delaware in 2016 and settling into his new home he joined The Pipes and Drums of the Delaware Valley (PDDV) in Wilmington Delaware, for about a year until the band broke up. At that time a fellow piper in the PDDV approached Bruce about The Cèol Nèamh Pipe Band (CNPB) of Lancaster, PA. that expressed a desire to establish a presence  in the Wilmington, DE area as a learning center. Bruce jumped at the opportunity to teach once again and began working with pipers and drummers from PDDV and from surrounding area. In 2018 his Wilmington group fielded a G5 band with CNPB that competed twice that season, turning in very respectable results.

Bruce currently is Pipe Major of Wilmington Delaware's newest pipe band, the An Còrr Pipes and Drums, where he continues to teach.