Graeme Abernethy is Director of Music of the Highland Band of the
Royal Regiment of Scotland. He enlisted as a horn player in the Regimental Band of the Gordon Highlanders in 1983, attending the pupils course at the Royal Military School of Music, Kneller Hall the following year, where he won the Cousins Silver Medal for the highest marks in the instrumental competition and the Cassels Silver Medal for the highest marks in the written examinations. On leaving the Regular Army in 1989 to study for a degree in Chinese, he joined the then Band of the 51st Highland Volunteers and was appointed Bandmaster in 1991. After having followed a postgraduate course in Business Management, he embarked on a career involving exporting commercial catering equipment to Lithuania and then marketing bakery equipment in the UK. Although these were thoroughly enjoyable activities, it seems music has finally won through and he is embarking on yet another career change - having undertaken a course at the University of Sunderland, he recently qualified as a secondary school music teacher.