Maxville’s 75th is this year and they want a tune (and a song)

The Glengarry Highland Games was first held in 1948, and this year will see the 75th running of what has grown into the largest piping and drumming competition in North America.

To mark the occasion, the organizers of the event in Maxville, Ontario, are putting on two composing competitions, one for a song of at least three verses that “highlight the majesty of the Glengarry Highland Games,” the other for a minimum two- or preferably four-part 6/8 march suitable for both the Highland pipes and fiddle.

The games said the chosen pipe tune should be “easy to play and suitable for massed pipes and massed violins.”

The prizes? The winning composers in each category will receive a Gold Patron Pass to the 2024 Glengarry Highland Games. There will be second prizes of two free tickets to the Friday and Saturday of the 2024 Glengarry Highland Games, August 2-3.

An added benefit, organizers said, “is an opportunity to encourage all musicians to develop a knowledge of music theory and our genre of music,” but they warn that “there should be no evidence of plagiarism of existing published or unpublished music and/or recordings.”

The winning tune will be published in the games’ program. Copyright will remain with the composer, “but the Glengarry Highland Games will have the right to use it without charge.” (NB: With proper legal music licenses, any event can use any recorded and live music they wish, but they should report a list of compositions used to the organizations issuing the license so that the authors of copyrighted works can receive the royalties that they have rightfully earned from that use.)

Entries and questions can be submitted by email, and the entry deadline is April 15, 2024.

Details on who will judge the pipe/fiddle tune competition were not immediately available.

Due to the pandemic, the Glengarry Highland Games were not held in 2020 and ’21, making 2024 the 75th time the event will take place.