Piping Live! back on for 2009
The Piping Live! International Piping Festival will be held for a sixth consecutive year, it was officially announced, with the Glasgow event taking place from August 10th to 16th, culminating with a post-World Pipe Band Championships celebration.
Details of specific events were not announced, but indications are that the festival will have an expanded line-up of concerts, recitals, workshops and parties. Organizers said that the 2008 Piping Live! attracted more than 8,500 pipers and drummers, as well as many more non-playing enthusiasts. The schedule of events will be revealed in May.
Piping Live! was named the 2008 Event of the Year by the Scots Trad Music Awards. A poll conducted during the festival indicated that a large majority of Piping Live! attendees would go to the festival even if it did not coincide with the World Pipe Band Championships, which will be on August 15th at Glasgow Green in Glasgow.
Sponsors of Piping Live! include Glenfiddich; Glasgow: Scotland with style; EventScotland; Scottish Enterprise; the Scottish Arts Council; the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama; and the National Piping Centre.
6th annual already? Seems like just yesterday when the first one was held. Good to see that it’s thriving.
Even if you didn’t attend a single ticketed concert – just being around in Glasgow during the week of Piping Live is an amazing thing. Those streets that we catch buses on, rush down, that are rained on, dug up and patched up all year, – suddenly become bustling, shining, character-laden backdrops to a piping and drumming frenzy. People you haven’t seen for years are suddenly there in front of you. Not that you have to know or recognise people. The stranger you’re standing next to outside the Piping Centre marquee will talk to you as if you’ve known them all your life. There’s simply music everywhere. Within the same eyeshot you will see Fred Morrison signing a book for somebody, a man you met at a summer school sitting in the street cafe, Chris Armstrong in a Piping Live t-shirt walk past and into the Centre, the woman and wee boy you spoke to last year at this very spot, Chris Gibb and band playing in the cafe, and St Thomas Episcopal band playing in the street – oh and Mike Patterson, the Editor of Piping Today standing talking to somebody. And that’s just one glance. Turn your head a few degrees and there’s another scene. And so it goes on. A few years ago a woman with a clipboard was doing a survey asking onlookers what they thought of the Piping Live event. After I’d answered all the questions she asked me how she would go about learning pipes. I often wonder if she followed that up. My point is that it’s impossible not to enthuse about it, and like that woman, countless people, must go away keen to learn pipes or drums. It’s simply the best, so long may it go from strength to strength.