Results

Clear skies and about 27 degrees greeted competitors and spectators over both days of the 120th annual Maclean Highland Gathering at the Maclean Showground. St. Andrew’s (Queensland) won the Grade 2 band contest overall, and Andrew Roach won the Gold Medal in the A-Grade Solo Piping.

Greg Wilson of Tai Tapu, New Zealand, won his record eighteenth Former Winners Clasp to the Gold Medal at the Hastings Highland Games, an achievement that won’t be equalled for a long time, if ever. Wilson also won the aggregate A-Grade solo piping championship.

Seventeen-year-old Cameron Bonar of Surrey British Columbia, became the youngest winner ever of the MacCrimmon Cairn for Piobaireachd at the British Columbia Pipers Association’s 92nd Annual Gathering held at North Delta Secondary School.

Blair Brown was the decisive overall winner, taking both events at the 2025 Agnew-Harrison Solo Drumming Competition at the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders of Canada’s armoury.

Alastair Donaghy of Beragh, Northern Ireland, won the overall trophy in the A-Grade piping after a tie with James Frazer was broken by the Piobaireachd result, and Dublin’s Stephen Creighton won the aggregate A-Grade snare drumming trophy at the Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association Northern Ireland Branch presented the Ulster Solo Piping & Drumming Championships at Cookstown High School. 

The annual solo piping competition run by the Scottish Pipers Association was held at the National Piping Centre, and it was Angus MacPhee of Inverness, Scotland, who won the Donald MacLean Trophy for the overall championship across the top-level events. Brodie Watson-Massey of Edinburgh won both the Piobaireachd and 6/8 March events for those graded Premier or A by the Competing Pipers Association, and Gordon McReady of Renfrew, Scotland won the MSR for previous winners of the Premier / A-Grade March and Strathspey & Reel.

The first annual Manitoba Scottish Festival, organized by the Prairie Pipe Band Association of Manitoba, occurred at RRC Polytech. Macalester College and Andrew Lewis of St. Paul, Minnesota, won the top contested band and solo events. The Piper of the Day trophy was awarded to Jane Borne, and Benjamin Robins received the Drummer of the Day prize.

Jenny Hazzard and Colin MacLellan judged all the piping, and Mark Passmore and Kahlil Cappucino handled the snare and mid-section assessments, and, ultimately, it was Erin Bell of Ottawa who was the big pipng winner, taking the A Level Knockout and placing second in the Senior level Piobaireachd event, which Ottawa’s J.S. Gamache won.

Hot on the heels of winning the Scottish Solo Snare Championship, Kerr McQuillan of Peoples Ford Boghall & Bathgate Caledonia won the 2025 RSPBA European Solo Snare Drumming Championship, organized by the RSPBA’s Dundee Perth & Angus Branch and Kingdom Thistle Pipe Band Supplies.

teven Shedden, leading-drummer for Grade 1 Hawthorn of Melbourne, Australia, was the overall winner of the Oceania Solo Snare Drumming Championships, and Auckland & District Leading-Drummer Douglas Bilsland won the RSPBA’s MSR, in which the first four finishers qualify to compete in the semi-final of the World Solo Snare Drumming Championship in Glasgow this October.

CLASP’s first online practice chanter competition was an extensive four-event project. The early piping talent of Eve de Jong from the Netherlands won the aggregate prize and a Session Practice Chanter from sponsors ES Session Chanters.

Angus D. MacColl was the overall winner of the 2025 Pipe-Major Donald MacLeod Memorial Invitational Solo Piping Competition, held once again at the Caladh Inn to an enthusiastic crowd.

Kerr McQuillan received two first places from thre two judges to win the 2025 Scottish Solo Snare Drumming Championship held at Inveralmond Community High School and organized by the Lothian & Borders Branch o0f the Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association.

The annual Duncan Johnstone Memorial Solo Piping Competition saw father and son Iain and Jonathon Simpson win the overall trophies in the C-Grade and B-Grade events, respectively, at the National Piping Centre. There was a large entry, including several travelling from North America.

Cameron Bonar was the winner of the ninth annual Boney Music Memorial Invitational Competition & Recital held again at the Seaforth Armoury, playing against Nick Hudson, Houston; Zephan Knichel, Surrey, British Columbia; and Craig Sutherland, Perth, Scotland.