Bagpipes... In Oviedo... From Spain?!?

by Jill Duff-Hoppes

In 2010, Oviedo resident Jose Vazquez was looking to relocate his engineering company from South America to the United States. A native of Spain, Jose was living in Venezuela at the time. Although he had traveled to the U.S. before, those trips were devoted to conducting business, not exploring the country for the best places to live.

So, when it was time to pick a new home, Jose took a straightforward approach and simply consulted a map. Florida stood out right away as a top choice to Jose and his family because of its warm climate.

“And suddenly we found a place named Oviedo,” he recalls with a smile. “I said, ‘Ok, my mother’s family is from the city of Oviedo in Spain. This is the place! That was how we chose to    live here.”

Jose, his wife Caroline, and sons Santiago and Sebastian moved to the Sunshine State’s version of Oviedo sight unseen, based on the name and location alone.

“It was a great decision, although the American Oviedo is different from its Spanish counterpart,” says the 56-year-old Jose, “We have felt very welcome here and have learned a great deal about its history, culture, and people. We love the place; we love the people.”

Tones of Home

Now, Jose wants to give back to his adopted hometown by infusing it with a dose of culture from its sister city in Spain. And he is doing so in a rather surprising way – with bagpipes that he hopes students at Oviedo High School will soon be playing.

Bagpipes? From Spain? Indeed! Although most Americans associate bagpipes with Scotland, the woodwind instrument is also popular in other countries, and that includes Spain.

Jose’s bagpipe project involves an intriguing cast of characters who are working as an international team to make his vision a reality. On the Florida side, the players include Oviedo High School’s band program; The Oviedo Preservation Project, a nonprofit organization; and the honorary consul of Spain in Orlando. In Spain, the key participants include Fundación Cajastur, a Spanish cultural foundation; and Real Banda de Gaitas de Oviedo, a bagpipe band.

The inspiration for the project came to Jose one day while he was watching the OHS marching band perform. The Oviedo High band has been a big part of both of his sons’ lives. His oldest, Santiago, now a freshman at Valencia College, played the trumpet when he attended Oviedo High. Younger son Sebastian, a freshman at OHS, is a current member of the band and plays the mellophone (the marching-band equivalent of the French horn). A proud band parent, Jose says the Marching Lions are already outstanding, but he thinks the addition of bagpipes could give the band even more pizzazz on the field – and perhaps a competitive edge to boot.

Bagpipe Diplomacy

After pitching the idea to the school’s band director and getting positive feedback, Jose was off and running. A big hurdle was the cost of the bagpipes, he says, which carry a $1,200 price tag per instrument. Jose then reached out to the mayor of Oviedo, Spain, which led to introductions to the Fundación Cajastur and Real Banda de Gaitas de Oviedo.

To Jose’s delight, the foundation offered to donate 12 Asturian bagpipes to the project. In Spain, there are several types of bagpipes including the Galician and Asturian versions, named for the regions of Spain from which they come. Jose has lived in both of those regions of the country and knows how to play the Galician bagpipes, himself. The dozen instruments were recently delivered from Spain to Oviedo City Hall, with The Oviedo Preservation Project (TOPP) accepting ownership of the bagpipes on behalf of Oviedo High School.

Locally, Megan Sladek, Oviedo’s mayor and the executive director of TOPP, has been an enthusiastic supporter of the bagpipe initiative from the start.

“This cultural exchange invites young people to expand their perspective to consider people who live beyond our little city of Oviedo,” she says. “This project will give our local band students an opportunity to not only learn a new instrument, but to think about how instruments are adapted from one region to another and what the role of regional instruments is in that community’s culture.”

Who Wants To Play?

The next steps are to drum up student interest in starting a bagpipe club and to begin teaching the teens how to play the instrument. The plan is to bring the director of the bagpipe band from Spain to Central Florida to show students what a bagpiper can achieve with this distinctive instrument. Bagpipes always make quite an impression, says Jose, from their appearance to their sound.

“You can love it, or you can hate it,” he says, “but you will not be indifferent.”

The initiative’s ultimate goal would be to launch a bagpipe band at Oviedo High during the ‘25-’26 school year and incorporate bagpipers into the marching band’s shows.

“This project aims to foster mutual understanding between our two cities with the same name and promote cultural exchange,” says Jose. “I am confident the instrument will bring uniqueness and flair to the marching band’s performances.”

Adds Mayor Sladek, “Once they learn how to play, the students can march across the field at football games playing the fight song, or participate in parades, and this will make everyone in our community wonder, ‘What’s up with the bagpipes?’ And the answer will be: ‘They’re from our sister city in Spain!’” 

What’s In a Name?

Oviedo in Seminole County, Florida, and Oviedo in the Asturias region of Spain are sister cities that share an informal relationship. The two Oviedos don’t have a whole lot in common except for their name, and even that is pronounced differently. 

Here, the name is pronounced oh-VEE-dough; there, the pronunciation is oh-vee-AY-dough. According to the City of Oviedo (Florida) website, town founder Andrew Aulin chose the name Oviedo after the city in Spain. Interestingly, Aulin was of Swedish lineage, not of Spanish descent. He settled on the name Oviedo as an homage to Florida’s Spanish heritage.