Work & Activities

In 1967 he began to study Mechanics (Motoring) at As Mercedes School in Lugo. Five years later, he moved to Barcelona to study at Virgen de la Merced School, where he finally graduated as industrial master.
He worked for an electromechanics firm and he got in touch with technologies he found useful later to improve the tools he had and create other new ones to optimize the bagpipe manufacturing process.
In 1979 he established his studio in Barcelona and began to make bagpipes, getting a great success among all the bagpipers who lived in Catalonia and all around Europe.
In 1986 he gave up his job in the factory and moved his studio to Cambre (A Coruña). It was then that he began to think about a bigger company by unifying both studios. He tries to modernize the traditional production systems and investigate deeply all the aspects related to the bagpipe. Eight years later, in 1994, he saw his dream come true with the foundation of “Obradoiro de Gaitas Seivane” together with his father and brother. Álvaro gave bagpipe lessons and his investigative interest culminate in the creation of the synthetic Seipal drone reed, patented in 2005, which avoids the usual failures of classic drone reeds, guaranteeing a tone stability in all the humidity and temperature circumstances, without losing a bit of the sound of the traditional drone reed. Álvaro and his family give a modern treatment to the manufacturing process, constantly trying to correct the failures of the old bagpipes.
They contribute to the standardization of bagpipe measures and drone reeds. This allows an optimization of the whole production process and timbre homogeneity in all their instruments.  Obradoiro Seivane, run today by Álvaro and Xosé Seivane, sells bagpipes all around the world, especially since they opened the web page (www.seivane.es) which was a pioneer and goes on being a reference and example among all the web pages about crafts all around the world. This page was awarded Innova Prize by the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Commerce in 2006 as an example of innovation in crafts of Spanish small and medium-sized enterprises.
Going on with the research activity in 2009, the CTAG and the University of Vigo put at the disposal of Obradoiro Seivane the research ability and the most modern equipment to carry out IDIGAITA project that will be finished in 2011. In this project, the CTAG uses new materials with green point, where sonority is evaluated using a methodology of objective and subjective analysis of the sound, developed by Sonitum – University of Vigo.
Álvaro participated in all the movements to improve the bagpipe and take it to the high consideration it has nowadays, but without losing the essence of tradition, Galician essence.
Álvaro has been working for about thirty years in this job. Together with his family, he turned Seivane surname into a synonym of elegance, ability, competence and precision. Obradoiro de Gaitas Seivane is today the first Galician company for the production, commercialization and exportation of bagpipes.
As part of Obradoiro de Gaitas Seivane, he was awarded different prizes for his labour and influence on Galician bagpipe.