International Piping Recital added to World’s Week Todd Bar schedule

If the slate of events during the Piping Live! festival over the seven days around the 2010 World Pipe Band Championships weren’t already cram-packed with options, yet another truly world-class event has been added, with an International Piping Recital assembling Scottish, Irish, Galician, Breton and Mallorcan artists on the Todd Bar stage. The new event brings the total of University of Strathclyde major happenings over the week to six.

On the bill will be Marco Foxo of Galicia, Patrick Molard from Brittany, the Scottish group Rura, the Armagh Pipers Club of Northern Ireland and Xeremiers de Soller from Mallorca. The concert is being organized directly by the National Piping Centre.

The new event is the latest addition to the Todd Bar venue, which is considered by most to be the original spark for the concept of a week-long festival that takes advantage of the heavy influx of international pipers and drummers descending on Glasgow for the World Pipe Band Championships. The £5/ticket Friday night concert will provide a setting for torqued-up competitors to relax the night before the big contest.

The full lineup of Todd Bar events:

Tuesday, August 10th

• 2 pm – Drumming Recital – featuring Blair Brown, Jim Kilpatrick, Reid Maxwell, Steven McWhirter, Barry Wilson and the corps of House of Edgar-Shotts & Dykehead, Simon Fraser University and St. Thomas Episcopal School.

• 5 pm – Silver Cap Solo Piping Competition – featuring Willie McCallum, Angus MacColl, Stuart Liddell, Jack Lee and Gordon Walker.

Wednesday, August 11th

• 1 pm – Drumming for Drinks.

Thursday, August 12th

• 7.30 pm – Piping Recital Challenge Contest –  featuring Angus MacColl, Stuart Liddell, Alasdair Gillies and Bruce Gandy.

Friday, August 13th

• 5 pm – International Piping Recital.

Sunday, August 15th

• 7:30 pm – Karaoke – Sponsored by Winter Storm.

The founding World’s Week event was the “Pre-World’s Concert” first started in the 1980s in Ballymena, Northern Ireland. The concert then was formalized as an annual show organized by the Phoenix Honda-Glasgow Skye Pipe Band, which now is staged at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall after more humble beginnings in far smaller theatres.

The original Todd Bar event was the Piping Recital-Challenge, which continues to be among the most popular of all World’s Week happenings. The event will again be organized by renowned solo piper Willie McCallum, who has worked at the University of Strathclyde’s accounting department for many years. McCallum had been managing other Todd Bar events, but this year has willingly given up their direction to others.

Before Piping Live! hundreds of visiting pipers and drummers would kill time, mostly in pubs, worrying about Saturday’s contest. The festival now brings in millions of pounds in revenue for the city of Glasgow and the Scottish economy.

Tickets to all Todd Bar events are available online.