Archive
The second annual Jimmy McIntosh MBE Piobaireachd Workshop run by Pittsburgh Piping Society and Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh is scheduled for February 9-11, with three of McIntosh’s most successful pupils, Andrew Carlisle, Mike Cusack and Amy Garson, instructing. The 2023 workshop attracted in 2023, 35 students of every ability, […]
By winning the recent Sun Belt Invitational, Nova Scotia’s Bruce Gandy has been invited to compete in the Ardmore Cup in Wexford, Ireland, on February 24th. The Ardmore Cup is the Sun Belt’s sister contest, each organized by Eric Stein and a team of volunteers as new independently-run solo piping […]
As the Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association alluded to in the minutes of its October 7th Board of Directors meeting, the organization has reportedly cautioned that its 2024 competition season could see only two major championships taking place as the clock is running down on securing sponsorship from city councils […]
With most of the pipe band world in the Northern Hemisphere settling into its winter competition off-season, pipers and drummers in New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, and other countries are already getting into their summer competitions. Apart from Scotland, there’s perhaps nowhere else with as many top-quality bands and soloists […]
The 27th running of the George Sherriff Memorial Amateur Invitational Solo Piping Competition will return to St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church in downtown Hamilton, Ontario, on Saturday, November 18th, with 10 of 2023’s most successful non-professional players going for a raft of prizes donated by sponsors. After both the Nicol-Brown and […]
The 2023 Sun Belt Invitational Professional Solo Piping Championship went to Bruce Gandy of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, who gained the prize in an aggregate points tie with St. Andrews, Scotland’s Callum Beaumont by winning the Piobaireachd competition. It was the contest’s second year, organized by Eric Stein and supported by various sponsors.
The inaugural Sandy Jones Memorial Amateur Invitational Solo Piping Championship was won by Tom Cangelosi of Arlington, Virginia, who took both the Piobaireachd and MSR events against nine other pipers from around North America.
Steven MacDonald of nearby Jacksonville, Florida, was the winner of the first BarRoom Brawl solo piping contest as part of the annual Sun Belt Solo Piping Competition, winning US$1,000 and the coveted and OTT wrestling belt as a trophy.
The Deans Bowling Club in Livingston, Scotland, will play host to the 10th anniversary LIVI Invitational Solo Drumming Competition, with 12 of the UK’s top pipe band snare musicians vying for the trophy, all in support of Enable Scotland, a charity for those with learning disabilities and other special needs. […]
On November 11th, piping-rich nations collectively pause to think and appreciate. But all pipers and drummers should realize that we were given an extra gift because of these horrific conflicts – and remember with our music.
Editor’s note: with an aging population in most parts of the world’s more significant piping and drumming countries, pipes|drums will explore the challenges pipers and drummers face with getting older and remaining in our competition avocation with various features over the next year. We start with an opinion piece designed […]
Treasured piping teacher Domhnall Ban MacDonald, an unsung hero of the art who has taught hundreds of young pipers over more than two decades in the schools of the isles of Uist and Barra, is in the running for the Tutor of the Year prize in the 2023 Scots Trad […]
After the Scottish Piping Society of London’s solo competitions on November 4th, Angus MacPhee of Inverness and Keith Bowes Jr. of Glasgow emerged the winners of the Competing Pipers Association’s 2023 league table rankings for B-Grade and C-Grade members. The standings are compiled based on nine designated solo piping competitions […]
The 21st annual MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards are on December 2nd at the Caird Music Hall in Dundee, Scotland, and this year Highland piping again comes up in several spots among the 22 categories. Multi-instrumentalist-piper Ross Ainslie seemed ubiquitous in 2023 with many solo and ensemble projects, and […]
With a first in the Piobaireachd event and a fourth in the MSR, Liam Horne of Bristol, Virginia, was the winner of the seventeenth annual United States Junior Solo Piping Championship, part of the annual Balmoral Classic competitions run by the Balmoral School of Piping & Drumming at the University of Pittsburgh. Horne won by his higher placing in the Piobaireachd, tied with Magnus Stone, Natick, Massachusetts, who was second, and Duncan Winters, Grand Junction, Colorado, who was third.
The Midwest Pipe Band Association, under President Jim Sim, is continuing to lead with progressive measures designed to bring piping and drumming competition and performance into a more modern era. At the MWPBA’s annual general meeting on November 4th, some 65 members, present in-person and online, passed several five substantial […]