A pipe band is providing a little festive cheer online this year with a rousing rendition of a Christmas classic.
Canada's Simon Fraser University Pipe Band were unable to lead the annual Santa Claus Parade in Vancouver due to Covid restrictions this month, so decided to do things a little differently this year.
The organisation said that they wanted to continue to bring cheer to the community during these challenging times by letting people know that "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" with a fun bagpipe version of the hit song.
Consistent with the pandemic lockdown restrictions, band members each recorded their pieces separately in their homes, and then they were combined together to produce the audio track and video clip.
Posted online by the team, they stated that in the absence of the Parade, they will be donating proceeds from the streaming and downloads of the audio track to a local Food Bank and a children's charity.
They are also encouraging people to also donate directly to support these two charities.
A spokesperson for the band said: "With the Covid restrictions, the band has been doing weekly Zoom practices to keep all of our pipers in shape so we are ready for competition whenever we are allowed again.
"We released a live album just when Covid first hit back in March and put the videos on YouTube and our social media which were appreciated during these challenging times, so we wanted to create more new and interesting content."
They added that they then hit upon the idea after realising they wouldn't be able to lead the parade this year.
"The tune was arranged for the bagpipes by one of our members, Alastair Lee, and it uses a lot of notes not conventionally heard on the bagpipes - something we think (or at least hope!) will be interesting for fans of pipe music."
Featuring 22 of the band's pipers, the video is already proving popular on social media.
The SFUPB added that they are looking forward to doing a few more of these videos, hopefully with their drummers joining too.
