James W. Troy, a highly respected piping teacher, adjudicator and reed maker on Canada’s west coast passed away peacefully on the morning of December 9, 2025, at the age of 83.
James first received tuition with Pipe Major Ian Duncan of Victoria and in whose youth band he had been pipe major until he turned 16, the band’s upper age limit. Subsequent teachers and mentors included Archie MacEndewar, Jimmie Watt, Archie Cairns and Donald MacLeod. He credits Andrew Wright with nurturing his love for piobaireachd. In 1961, James Troy played with the Royal Canadian Air Force Pipe Band at the World’s Fair in Seattle. In 1972, he helped launch and led the highly successful City of Victoria Pipe Band, a band who in the 1980s included in their ranks the likes of Bruce Gandy, Jack and Terry Lee, Peter Aumonier and John Fisher. Then, in 1998, James W. Troy, with local police officer Dave McMillan established the Greater Victoria Police Pipe Band, who absorbed the then-weakened city band.
Also in 1998, James and son Jamie, took over the McAllister reed-making business and went to Scotland to study the famous McAllister brothers’ methods. That chanter reed-making training with John K., William and Tom McAllister Jr, and the McAllisters’ encouragement, allowed the McAllisters to retire and enabled the Troys to continue production of the highly-regarded reeds in the same way.
