Archive
Local piper Cameron Drummond was the popular winner of the Grade 2 City of Edinburgh’s Pipe-Major’s Wheel of Fortune solo piping competition held at Danderhall Miners’ Club in Midlothian. The event, which is hosted by the City of Edinburgh Pipe Band, requires pipers to play a medley of tunes determined by spinning a Golden Chanter on the Wheel of Fortune. The Wheel features 12 tune categories and competitors are required to play five of them, with the final tune category selected by a member of the audience as pipers take the floor.
Oban, Scotland – April 29, 2023 – Roddy MacLeod won the Premier / A-Grade Piobaireachd and Sarah Muir took the MSR at the Highlands & Islands solo piping competitions held at Oban High School as part of the larger Music & Dance festival. The events were held at the Corran […]
To help mark the one-hundredth anniversary of the sailing of the “Metagama” from the Isle of Lewis in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides to Quebec, the Grade 1 78th Fraser Highlanders of Ontario are returning to Stornoway to perform as the headliner in a Grand Concert as part of Tattoo Metagama on […]
According to our site traffic stats, markedly fewer readers worldwide seemed to pay attention to or care about the news that the Kincardine Scottish Festival tried to go it alone with an independently-run, non-association sanctioned band competition. It would be wise for everyone to be concerned. We say “tried to […]
A lighthouse on the shores of Lake Huron is emblematic of the Ontario town of Kincardine, and now North American Grade 2 competing pipe bands have made an apparent show of solidarity to avoid rockiness by not taking part in a proposed unsanctioned Grade 2 “Battle of the Bands” competition […]
The organizers of the 2023 Northern Meeting Solo Piping Competitions at Inverness, Scotland, on August 31st and September 1st have determined the judges for the various competitions, including the Clasp, the Highland Society of London Gold Medal and the Silver Star Former Winners’ March, Strathspey & Reel. The event accepts […]
The Pipers’ & Pipe Band Society of Ontario held its annual Adjudicators’ Seminar at the Toronto Police College on Saturday, April 22nd. Around 40 accredited judges attended the event, the first in-person Judges’ Seminar since 2019. The piping portion of the day consisted of seminars covering the judging of piobaireachd, […]
Ulster Scottish of Philadelphia were the big winners at the 2023 American Pipe Band Championships at the Scope Arena, part of the Virginia Tattoo weekend. Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon University took the Grade 3 title and Ottawa Police Service won the Open Drum Fanfare. A few Grade 3 bands played up. There were no other competition grades.
Lochgelly, Scotland – April 22, 2023 – For the first time since 2019 and the twelfth time overall, the Kingdom Thistle Solo Piping & Drumming Competition was held, this time at Lochgelly High School. Peoples Ford Boghall & Bathgate Caledonia’s Callum Davidson won both the Open piping events, while Steven […]
Seven Shedden of Melbourne, Australia, was the winner of the RSPBA’s European Solo Drumming Championship held at Lochgelly High School as the latest qualifying event for the semi-final of the 2023 World Solo Drumming Championship this October.
The piping and drumming world was saddened and shocked to learn of the passing of John Elliott of Kirkcaldy, Scotland, on April 20, 2023. Elliott was known globally as the founder and owner of G1 Reeds, a business he started in 2010 and that he built into being one of […]
The Kincardine Scottish Festival held every July in the picturesque Lake Huron-side town of Kincardine, Ontario, since 1998 has been one of the most popular events on the Ontario piping and drumming circuit. But, citing complications due to roadwork, the Pipers & Pipe Band Society of Ontario, which has always […]
For more than three decades, pipes|drums has consistently worked to highlight the contributions by, pioneering work of, and, sadly, inequitable conditions for women in piping and drumming, including feature pieces, interviews and advocacy campaigns to bring better participation by and equality for females in the art. Back in the 2000s, […]
The Standards & Grading Group of the Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association’s Music Board has approved Glasgow Skye Association’s application to move from Grade 1 to Grade 2 for the 2023 season. The move brings the total number of actively competing Grade 1 bands worldwide to 23, with seven based […]
After a long five-year wait, the Grade 2 City of Edinburgh Pipe Band’s Pipe-Major’s Wheel of Fortune Invitational Solo Piping Competition is back on April 29th at the Danderhall Miners’ Club near Edinburgh with as much fun and creativity as ever. First held in 2006, the contest requires eight top-tier […]
Charleston, South Carolina – April 15, 2023 – Playing “Queen Anne’s Lament,” Andrew Donlon of Washington, DC, was the winner of the Joseph MacDonald Memorial Prize for Piobaireachd, sponsored by the Clan Donald Trust and Robert Burns Society of Charleston as part of the Scottish Performing Arts Classic at Saint […]