The 12th annual pipes|drums New Year’s Honours

The ball has dropped on the year that was 2013 in piping and drumming, and the standard we saw in the last 12 months was, without doubt, the greatest ever, so again we return to our annual pipes|drums New Year’s Honours – now in our twelfth anniversary!

As always, we put together a panel of experts from around the world, requesting that they provide their selections in different categories. We tried to be as sure as possible that those on the panel represented a fair international representation, and were free from competitive and manufacturing bias.

As in the past, there are two categories for pipers: one strictly for solo competition success and the other for all pipers for all of their work in the art. With even fewer music collections published in the last 12 months, these were again combined in a single product category.

In most areas, selections were close, and any bands, people or products nominated gained a high achievement just by making the cut. Ultimately, though, winners had to be selected, and we congratulate them all on their impressive success.

And the winners are . .