Thank you for visiting the Ian Sturrock Memorial Pipe Band website. ISMPB is a performance and competition band based in Birmingham, Alabama. We are sponsored by GUINNESS® as well as the St Andrews Society of the Middle South and the Caledonian Society of Alabama. ISMPB also operates with the support of partner organizations Birmingham Irish Cultural Society and Irish Society of North Alabama. We perform regularly around town with the traditional Irish pub band Jasper Coal and lead Birmingham's Annual St Patrick's Day Parade.

Our mission: To honor the memory of Ian Sturrock of Kilmarnock, Scotland and his cultural contribution to Birmingham and the state of Alabama, and to preserve and pass on the tradition of piping brought to Alabama by Ian from Scotland through performance, competition, musical instruction, outreach, and education.

Ian Sturrock was born in 1921 in Kilmarnock, Scotland. He began his tutelage on the pipes at the age of twelve at the Kilmarnock Academy. He was a member of the Cadet Pipe Band at the academy and was appointed as Pipe Major at the age of eighteen. It was World War II that brought Ian to Tuscaloosa, Alabama where he was trained as a fighter pilot. After the war, he returned to Alabama where he married, settled in Birmingham, and raised a family.

Our tutorial lineage as a pipe band traces directly to Ian, thus connecting our tradition of piping here in Birmingham directly to Scotland. In loving memory and with great reverence and respect for what Ian started, it is important that we maintain these traditions and keep the memory of Ian alive through our activities as a band. We do so with great pride.