Piping Live! 2020 on solid ground, despite loss of MacLeod
MacLeod’s resignation from the National Piping Centre, effective in May, was announced on January 10th, and the news quickly reverberated around the world piping and drumming community. A general lack of detail led to many questions and few, if any, answers over the ensuing days.
“As a co-founder and director of Piping Live! I can assure you that it will continue to grow and prosper as it has always been a team activity at the National Piping Centre,” said Alberto Laidlaw, director of administration at the National Piping Centre. “Roddy does not leave till the end of May and plans are in any case already well advanced for this year’s festival. We are extremely lucky to have terrific breadth, depth and enthusiasm In the team. The anticipated lineup for this year’s Piping Live! promises to make it one of the best with some sensational artists from around the world.”
The festival, which attracts thousands of enthusiasts and hundreds of piping and drumming performers over its eight days in Glasgow before and after the World Pipe Band Championships, will continue, but inevitably with the stamp of a new director.
The role, at least as it has been defined, is part of the National Piping Centre’s director job description.
MacLeod was a co-founder and the original director of Piping Live!, which will celebrate its eighteenth anniversary in 2020. His name was and is pretty much synonymous with the festival.
“We expect that Roddy’s replacement will be in place by the time that detailed work begins for the 2021 festival,” Laidlaw added. “We are all sorry that Roddy is stepping down and that his fantastic contribution in all matters piping will be missed.”
While Piping Live! is enjoyed by pipers and drummers worldwide, the festival is also an economic cash cow for the city of Glasgow and the general Scottish economy. A study of last year’s festival indicated that the event injected about £2-million into the local economy.
Required official documents lodged with Scotland’s Company House indicate that both the National Piping Centre and the Piping Live! festival are on solid financial ground.
Piping Live! was voted Event of the Year in the 2019 pipes|drums New Year’s Honours.
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