Mike Dupuis wins 75th anniversary Glengarry Highland Games composing contest

The Glengarry Highland Games will celebrate its seventy-fifth anniversary on August 2-3 in Maxville, Ontario, with the help of Truro, Nova Scotia’s 6/8 march, the winner of a composing contest the games put on.

From about 35 entries, Dupuis’s four-parter was chosen best by a panel of pipers and fiddlers looking for a composition that suited both pipes and fiddle.

“The committee and judging panel were pleasantly surprised not only by the number of entries but also by their high quality,” said Donaldson MacLeod, chair of the Glengarry Highland Games’ Compose a Tune committee. All the composers should be congratulated on their efforts.”

Dupuis is a member of the New Scotland in Nova Scotia but is originally from the Maxville area’s Glengarry County. The runner-up was a march by Alana MacPhail Morris from Ottawa, also originally from Glengarry County.

Fifty bands have entered over all five grades for the August 3rd Maxville competitions, including Grade 5 Normandy Highlands from France and San Francisco’s Prince Charles in Grade 4.

After a dip in entries following the pandemic years, the Glengarry Highland Games returns as the largest single pipe band competition in North America and by far the biggest in terms of total solo and band performances combined.

Dupuis’s tune will be played at the Memorial Service on Friday, August 2nd, and published in the 75th Glengarry Highland Games souvenir program.