PORTLAND – Pageantry and music will fill the Cumberland County Civic Center on Jan. 26 when pipers, drummers and Highland dancers of the 1st Battalion of the Black Watch and Band of the Welsh Guards perform.

The War of the Austrian Succession brought The Black Watch its first battle honor, at the Battle of Fontenoy in 1745. Shortly afterward, it distinguished itself at the Battle of Ticonderoga during the French and Indian War.

During the 19th century, The Black Watch served all over the world. In the Napoleonic Wars, it comprised part of the British Army at the Battle of Corunna, Toulouse, the Peninsula Campaign and Waterloo. It also fought against Russians in the Crimean War, quelled mutineers during the Sepoy Rebellion in India, and fought against Colonel Arabi Pasha in the Egyptian Campaign of 1882 and the Dutch South Africans in the Boer War.

The Band of the Welsh Guards was formed in the same year as the regiment (1915) and consisted of 44 musicians and a warrant officer, Andrew Harris, their bandmaster. Their first set of instruments were presented by the city of Cardiff, which enabled the band to carry out the first Kings Guard Mounting on St. David’s Day 1916. On the same day, it gave its first concert on the stage of the London Opera House.

Within its ranks the musicians come from a variety of backgrounds such as colleges, academies, other military bands and orchestras. Permanently based in London, its members can regularly be seen at the ceremony of Changing The Guard at Buckingham Palace.