Lewis & Harris Piping Society kicks off post-season with Callum Beaumont recital this Friday

The Lewis & Harris Piping Society continues to bring top-shelf events to Scotland’s Western Isles and will kick off their winter program with a recital by five-time Northern Meeting Clasp-winner Callum Beaumont on Friday, September 29th, at the Caladh Hotel in Stornoway, Isle of Lewis.

The 34-year-old Beaumont has enjoyed another hugely successful competition year, also winning the Silver Star MSR at Inverness, the A-Grade Strathspey & Reel at the Argyllshire Gathering, the inaugural Sun Belt Invitational, and, perhaps not coincidentally, the overall championship at the annual Pipe-Major Donald MacLeod Memorial Invitational Solo Piping Competition in Stornoway, the event that is most associated with the society.

With five Clasps already, Callum Beaumont is within a realistic distance of Donald MacPherson’s nine Northern Meeting Clasps record. Beaumont won his first Clasp in 2012 at age 23, one the youngest pipers in history to achieve the award.

The recital will be followed the next day by the organization’s annual Junior Competition at the Sir E. Scott School in Tarbert, Isle of Harris, where Beaumont will swap his pipes for a pen as the primary judge at the contest.

Thanks in large part to the work of the Lewis & Harris Piping Society, more than 300 youths are learning the pipes across Scotland’s Hebrides.

After the competition and the recital, the society will present top solo piper, composer and recording artist James Duncan MacKenzie of the Isle of Lweis in recital on November 15th at the Caladh Hotel.