I’ve been a musician most of my life. As a kid I was that oddity who listened as readily to The Beatles as Henry Purcell or Bach. A singer primarily, I would spend hours in my room teaching myself to sing listening to Led Zeppelin or The Guess Who. If I couldn’t sing like Robert Plant or Burton Cummings, then I couldn’t yet call myself a singer (kinda still working on that part!). I have since studied voice and finished a music degree in vocal-choral performance from Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta.

Imagine the looks on my parents’ faces when I told them I wanted to be a bagpiper. So much for those childhood memories of children playing Chopin on the piano in the shopping mall with the other music students! I learned to play bagpipes in the basement of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, also in Calgary. Since then I’ve recorded 2 solo piping albums for Highland Dance accompaniment: “For Dancer’s Only” and “Next.” 

And, like every other twelve year old boy, I just had to learn the guitar, something I still do professionally. All this taken together has added up to a pleasing and fun music career.

“be that as it may”, my debut CD of original music is available on iTunes.

If you like music sprinkled liberally with Celtic influences, Bruce Cockburn, Dan Fogelberg and Dougie MacLean, this might just be for you.

Photo c/o my producer, Allen des Noyers, taken on Okanagan Lake where I did most of the tracking.

Recently, I was invited into regular rotation on Doug E Fresh’s Poze Radio. Have a listen here.

Please consider following me on Spotify (Robert Alan Rife in the search bar) or wherever you stream/download your music!