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Glasgow’s Finlay Johnston was the big winner of the 2023 Scottish Piping Society of London’s annual solo competitions, taking three of the four major Saturday events, only missing the Hornpipe & Jig contest. For winning the overall, Johnston gets an invitation to the 2024 Glenfiddich Championship, where he will compete for his third title at Blair Castle in October.
Roddy MacLeod of Glasgow won the coveted Bratach Gorm for piobaireachd at the annual Piping Society of London (SPSL) solo piping competitions once again at the sumptuous Caledonian Club in the capital of England. It was MacLeod’s ninth time winning the Bratach Gorm.
Despite being a registered nonprofit serving the Pacific Northwest’s piping and drumming community, Meta – the oligarchical parent company that owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp – effectively shut down the benign organization’s properties on those “platforms” without any warning or explanation. The shutdown started on November 1st, with the BCPA’s […]
“The reason I wrote this article is that if the Ancient Martial Music dies out, the piping world will lose the best branch of the Piobaireachd, and to stop this from happening, I think that this branch of the music should go into the pipe bands. There are plenty of people among the bands who are clever, daring, and highly imaginative, and if they adopt this technique, it could be a refreshing change that might enhance their performance.”
The Pipers & Pipe Band Society has regraded none of its member bands for the 2024 competition season, and only one solo piper was moved to the Professional class. The organization’s Music Committee proposed that Kayleigh Johnstone of Aurora, Ontario, be elevated to Professional in both Piobaireachd and Light Music. […]
The shrewdly canny Tom Glover of Christchurch, New Zealand, is the winner of the 2023 pipes|drums Pick the Glenfiddich Five contest! For his stupendous powers of prediction, Tom receives a brand-new Infinity pipe chanter and a special merch pack from our friends at R.G. Hardie & Co. “The timing is […]
We connect with the 34-year-old Beaumont on his first Glenfiddich win. He talks about what it means to him, how he got to this point, and lends some sound advice to young pipers and drummers aspiring to greatness.
The Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association has finally clarified the contentious judging matter at the 2023 Grade 1 World Pipe Band Championships, the first known comments from the organization since August 19th, just after the final competition results were announced. In the minutes of the RSPBA’s October 7, 2023, Board […]
Callum Beaumont of St. Andrews, Scotland, was the winner of the 2023 Glenfiddich Solo Piping Championships, the fiftieth rendition of the event held for the fiftieth time in the Great Hall of Blair Castle, the ancestral home of the Duke of Atholl. It was Beaumont’s first time winning the award, taking the championship by merit of his win of the Piobaireachd event, with prize lists comprising eight of the 10 contestants.
Since its inception in the 1970s, the Alma Highland Festival & Games has been a Saturday-Sunday event in the small college town of Alma, Michigan, over the USA’s Memorial Day weekend each May. While that was great for American residents, who enjoyed the following Monday as a statutory holiday, Canadian […]
We live in a fantastic era, even more extraordinary when someone as young and poised and altogether focused a drummer as Kerr McQuillan can cop the award at age 19 on his first try. In this second part of our brief conversation, McQuillan talks about the past year as Leading-Drummer of Peoples Ford Boghall & Bathgate Caledonia and the year ahead. As you watch and listen, perhaps remind yourself that his achievements are history-making on many levels.
To say Kerr McQuillan has had a great year would be a considerable understatement. In 2023, since taking on the leading-drummer role with Grade 1 Peoples Ford Boghall & Bathgate Caledonia of Bathgate, Scotland, he’s already achieved things at age 19 that only very few musicians have in a lifetime. Start with winning the UK Pipe Band Championship in June – the first time the band had attained that title. Follow that with high prizes at the next two major championships, and then, of course, achieving the 2023 World Pipe Band Championship at Glasgow Green on August 19th, the first time in Boghall & Bathgate Caledonia’s 50-year history that they captured the big prize.
Because they have not done it, they can’t appreciate it, so they treat the competitors with a cavalier, it-doesn’t-matter attitude.
The City of Brechin Pipe Band has weathered many hard times over its 145 years of existence, but nothing quite like what it experienced last week. On Thursday, October 19th, more than 200 millimetres of rain hit the town of Brechin in Angus in northeast Scotland. That’s more rain than […]
After the success of the first edition of the Ardmore Cup in Ardmore, Ireland, the invitational solo piping contest will return to the quiet Waterford village on February 24, 2024, with a full slate of top-flight contestants. On tap for next year’s event: Chris Earls, Arklow, Ireland Angus MacColl, Benderloch, […]
The Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association announced the incorrect result for the adult section of the 2023 World Solo Snare Drumming Championship held on October 21st in Glasgow. At the event, St. Laurence O’Toole Leading-Drummer Stephen Creighton was announced as finishing sixth overall but then published as fifth on the […]