Archive

The National Piping Centre has been named Glasgow’s Favourite Business 2023 in a public vote orchestrated by the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce’s Glasgow Business Awards. The award was open to nominations from the general public via the Glasgow Times and then promoted by the awards’ media partner, the Evening Times. Most […]

Nearly 100 young pipers from across the Western and Southern Isles of Scotland competed in the 2023 Lewis & Harris Piping Society’s annual Junior Competition at Sir E. Scott School. Ultimately, Eilidh MacDonald of Harris and Benbecula’s Calum Beaton were the aggregate winners, respectively, of the Under 18 and Under 15 events.

Willie McCallum of Bearsden, Scotland, was the overall winner of the Premier grade events, accepting the Captain John A. MacLellan MBE Trophy at the annual solo piping competition named in honour of the late Capt. MacLellan. Inveraray, Scotland’s Stuart Liddell won the Premier Piobaireachd event, thus gaining an invite to next year’s Capt. John MacLellan Memorial Medal recital competition, a separate but connected event run by the Eagle Pipers Society in August. McCallum gained the aggregate prize by winning the MSR and placing fourth in the Piobaireachd.

Not only did Wellington’s 20-year-old Campbell Wilson win a record fifth consecutive NZ Young Piper of the Year solo competition, but he did so by taking all three events in his final year of eligibility. Wilson received a cheque for NZ$1,000 for his success. There were 46 competitors over the various events and 17 in the younger than 21 category alone. The NZ Young Piper of the Year award goes to the competitor with the most aggregate points across the Piobaireachd and MSR, the piob result as usual, giving preference in the event of a tie. There was no need for that, though.

At the St. Mark Presbyterian Church, Colin Forrest, Mission, British Columbia, won the 2023 Nicol-Brown Amateur Invitational Championship against a field of nine other North American pipers in the prestigious contest, held for the fortieth time since it started in 1982. The top five from each event had a certain number of points, the piobaireachd with the most value and the 6/8 march with the least.

We continue with the second and final part of the May 2002 pipes|drums Interview with Jimmy McColl. In Part 1, McColl discussed his background as a coal-mining piper growing up in Shotts, Scotland, his immigration to Los Angeles in 1956, and the start of the theories he formulated through independent research on piobaireachd. In Part 2, the prescient piper goes into more detail about his ceol mor findings, including his discoveries on “GDE Gatherings.” An irony is that McColl’s being in Southern California in the pre-Internet era removed him from the piping establishment that would undoubtedly have worked to tamp down his then-radical conclusions on the art form. The amateur piping aristocracy had worked successfully to standardize ceol mor since the formation of the Piobaireachd Society in 1903.

If necessity is indeed the mother of invention, then Bruce Lazeroff of Delaware has responded with the EBelaire, the first commercially available mobile air supply that allows pipers to play the Highland pipes without using their lungs. A software engineer, Lazeroff was inspired more than 11 years ago to develop […]

We revisit our May 2002 discussion with a courageous pioneer in the study of piobaireachd as he discusses ceol mor, piping in Scotland in the 1940s and ’50s, and his move to Los Angeles and that scene in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s.

Warwick, Queensland, Australia – September 29-30, 2023 – The first ever Australian Juvenile Pipe Band Championships and Australian Solo Championships were held at SCOTS PGC College saw Scotch College Melbourne #1 win the Juvenile A grade on a hot and sunny spring day. Queensland Police Juvenile took the Juvenile B […]

Over the last few years, the Ontario piping and drumming community has supported two of their most popular and accomplished contributors, Trish Kirkwood and Linda Aumonier, as they have soldiered through lengthy and painful breast cancer treatment. On October 1st, the support continued at the annual Run for the Cure, […]

Stuart Easton of Palmerston, North, New Zealand, won both the Everest Piobaireachd and the Brown Cup MSR events at the annual Brown Cup Solo Piping Competition held at Scots College. Entries were lower over past years, probably due to the event being held a little later in the year and many prominent Kiwi pipers spending their disposable income on going to the World Pipe Band Championships.

Results of a pipes|drums survey of the pipe-majors of the 16 Grade 1 bands that competed in the 2023 World Championships show overwhelming discontent with how the Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association handled the Friday MSR judging controversy during and after the competition. The survey also indicates a further erosion […]

The Glenfiddich Solo Piping Championship was first held in 1974 with the aim of bringing together the winners of the world’s most significant solo piping events to make the collectively greatest contest in the world. For 50 years, co-founder Seumas MacNeill’s vision has been realized, consistently assembling the globe’s 10 […]

Until 2020, the Metro Cup Solo Piping Competitions were one of the marquee events in the eastern United States, but a combination of the pandemic and a lack of volunteers contributed to the contest not being held for the last three years. But the competition will return over the February […]

Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, was once known as “The Band City” because the city supported many community musical bands and hosted an annual International Band Festival that drew all styles of bands from across North America, including pipe bands. The Sprigs o’ Heather Girls Pipe Band and the White Hackle Pipe […]

The Lewis & Harris Piping Society continues to bring top-shelf events to Scotland’s Western Isles and will kick off their winter program with a recital by five-time Northern Meeting Clasp-winner Callum Beaumont on Friday, September 29th, at the Caladh Hotel in Stornoway, Isle of Lewis. The 34-year-old Beaumont has enjoyed […]