Bonnie Rideout is a sterling Scots-American fiddler. The City of Washington Pipe Band is a world championship-winning competition unit. Both perform arrangements of traditional Scottish bagpipe tunes, albeit in markedly different styles. So perhaps bringing them together was inevitable.

So how, you might ask, does a solo fiddler compete -- volume-wise, if nothing else -- with more than a dozen Highland pipers plus several regimental drummers? The answer is, she doesn't.

While Rideout and the pipe band earn equal billing on Scottish Rant, don't expect to hear them performing much together. Rideout gets her time in the spotlight, the pipe band has its own share, but when they meet, it's generally fiddle and a solo piper working in sync while the rest of the band sits out. There are exceptions, but they're rare.

Don't think that means this album is in any way a failure, however. The music here is rousing and well-orchestrated, and the juxtapositioning of fiddle with pipes in otherwise traditional arrangements is a bold musical stroke. But the few times I hear the fiddle weaving its way through the full pipe band, I have to wonder why they didn't push that envelope a little further -- it's a wonderful sound which, while it must be a recording engineer's nightmare, seems worth the fuss.

Some people might find the transition back and forth between the fiddle and the full pipe band a little jarring, but forewarned listeners should enjoy the diversity.

Although most of the album is dedicated to lively marches, jigs and reels, a few slower tunes stand out. The fiddle line on "Amazing Grace," one of the piping world's best-known tunes, adds lovely emotion and depth. "Dunblane," which calls to mind a gunman who killed 16 students and a teacher in a Scottish school, is hauntingly gorgeous with fiddle, viola and pipes. (Kudos to Charlie Glendinning, the band's pipe sergeant and composer of this tune, as well as to Paula Glendinning, the solo piper who helps bring it to life.)

Robin Bullock also pays a visit, neatly meshing the cittern with a solo pipe and dombek in "Solo Jig and Hornpipes."

The album ends with the bagpipe standard, "Scotland the Brave." Here is a prime example of what could have been: I kept expecting and hoping to hear the bagpipes pass the tune to a well-amped fiddle for a lively arrangement, but no, the fiddle stayed quiet as the pipes faded into the distance.

I hope Rideout heads back into the studio with the City of Washington Pipe Band to try out some new, bolder arrangements. Scottish Rant only serves to whet my appetite for the greater effort I hope will follow.