15th annual pipes|drums New Year’s Honours

2016 Recording of the Year

Live In Ireland In Scotland – video stream and download

The recreation of the 1987 78th Fraser Highlanders’ concert in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, was an ambitious endeavour, reassembling those in the band at the time and friends of the organizers, but the show was pulled off to a sell-out crowd at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall as part of Celtic Connections, and then captured in a recording released later in the year. The first concert recording offered as a rented stream or download copy, it was not long before the scoundrels and scofflaws of the piping and drumming world ripped illegal copies, which was not only disheartening, but didn’t exactly encourage similar projects in the future. Regardless, it gained our recording of the year award for 2016.

+ Legacy and memories captured

Panellists’ comments:

“A celebration of the pipe band and pipe band recording that changed the pipe band medley.”

“Didn’t capture the spontaneous energy of the original, but still a solid recording with a new take.”

“Not many recordings this year, unfortunately, and this was easily the best.”

“Too bad not many people purchased this.”

Also nominated (alphabetical order):

• Ceol Mor / Light & Shade – Patrick Molard – another well put together recording by Brittany’s Molard, well-reviewed in pipes|drums. Molard quietly puts together his quality impressions on piobaireachd, bringing the music to new audiences.
• Edinburgh City Police Pipe Band – Pipe-Major Iain McLeod’s Selection – Greentrax Recordings compiled this special greatest hits of recordings of the great band, chose by then-Pipe-Major Iain McLeod. Robert Mathieson reviewed and loved the recording, remarking that, among many other virtues, the quality of piping could hold up today.