Archive
Tobermory, Scotland – July 21, 2022 – Ben Duncan of Edinburgh and Angus D. MacColl enjoyed excellent results in excellent weather at the annual Tobermory Games on the Isle of Mull, and it was Duncan who gained the aggregate championship. Fifteen competed in the senior solo piping events. Young Logie […]
Organizers of the Nicol-Brown Amateur Invitational Solo Piping Competition have cancelled the 2022 edition of the event, electing to take a “gap year” as they prepare for a 2023 return. “A transition year for the travel industry and for Grade 1 piping events” was provided as the reasons for skipping […]
Helensburgh, Scotland – July 17, 2022 – The beautiful Victoria Halls were the setting for the Helensburgh Professional Solo Piping Competition where Gordon McCready of Renfrew, Scotland, enjoyed two firsts and a second, with Brian Lamond of Dunfermline, Scotland, winning the March. The event is run by Balloch & Roseneath […]
Many of the events from the 2022 Piping Live! Glasgow International Festival of Piping will be tickets live-stream events, bringing the world’s biggest Highland piping festival to a world audience. The organizers have taken things a step further by creating new “Fanzone” events – essentially watch-parties where audiences can gather […]
Inveraray, Scotland – July 19, 2022 – Three years have passed since the Inveraray Highland Games occurred, and the popular event for the UK’s top solo pipers came back strong in hot and mostly sunny conditions at the games park in the shadow of Inveraray Castle. In early results from […]
Donald MacPherson was one of the art’s greatest competitors and teachers, revolutionizing the standard of tuning stability in the 1950s, and the Piping Live! Glasgow International Festival of Piping will mark the one-hundredth anniversary of his birth at a special event on August 10th at the National Piping Centre. “Donald […]
The well-known western Canada piper Alan Walters died on July 12, 2022, in his sixty-ninth year in Surrey, British Columbia. A constant presence at piping and drumming events throughout Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia, Walters was known more recently as a judge and teacher. Born in Calgary on July 8, […]
Cambridge, Ontario – July 16, 2022 – The Ontario outdoor season rolled on with the Cambridge Highland Games, held under sunny skies and temperatures around 30 degrees Celsius with bands and soloists seeking out any bit of shade they could find. The Grade 1 band event was not contested and […]
Antigonish, Nova Scotia – July 9-10, 2022 – After a two-year absence because of the scourge of the COIVID-19 mess, the historically important Antigonish Highland Games were held for the 157th time under crystalline clear skies and warm temperatures. Andrea Boyd of Ottawa was the winner of the Atlantic Canada […]
When BBC Scotland confirmed on July 1st that it would live-stream the first round of Grade 1 performances on the Friday of the World Pipe Band Championships, Britain’s public broadcaster could not say whether the Saturday would also be broadcast. The assumption is now reality as the network confirmed that […]
Readers younger than 30 might not be aware of the following records: From 1965 to 1969, Muirhead & Sons won five consecutive World Championships. The Strathclyde Police Pipe Band won six straight World’s from 1981 to 1986. The same band won 11 of 13 World Championships from 1979 to 1991, […]
The 49th running of the Glenfiddich Invitational Solo Piping Championship is scheduled to be held on October 29th at Blair Castle, Blair Atholl, Scotland, with 10 of the world’s elite Highland pipers strutting their stuff before critical panels of judges and an enthusiastic in-person and online audience. Tickets are now […]
Following considerable outcry from the piping and drumming world after it came to light that the Grade 4B Sons of Holyland & District of Israel was unsuccessful with their entry to the 2022 World Pipe Band Championships, the RSPBA held a “specially convened” meeting of its board of directors and […]
New Ross, Ireland – July 2, 2022 – Better late than never, the All-Ireland Championships returned after a two-year hiatus, with Pearse Park in New Ross, Co. Down, the venue for the seventy-fifth running of the event, which started in 1946 as a way to bring Northern Ireland and the […]
Wellington, New Zealand – July 9, 2022 – Willie Rowe of Rata, New Zealand, won the Everest Cup in the piobaireachd event and Stuart Easton of Palmerston North, New Zealand took the Brown Cup at the 70th annual Wellington Pipers Club Brown Cup. Fourteen competed in the competition held at […]
We revisit R.S. MacDonald’s review of one of Highland piping’s major CD releases