Glasgow – January 25, 2009 – Alexis Meunier of Brittany won all three sections of the third annual Gordon Duncan Memorial Invitational Solo Piping Competition held at the Station Hotel in Glasgow. Because the hotel is in liquidation, there was no heat at the recital/competition, causing spectators and judges to wear overcoats throughout the near-six-hour event. One competitor quipped that the conditions were good practice for the Scottish games circuit in the summer.
The prizes were awarded by Jock Duncan, father of the late Gordon Duncan, and the contest was sponsored by McCallum Bagpipes.
Scottish section:
1st Alexis Meunier
2nd Willie McCallum, Bearsden, Scotland
3rd Chris Armstrong, Airth, Scotland
Judges: Ian Duncan, Iain MacLellan
Breton section
1st Alexis Meunier
2nd Sylvain Hamon, Brittany
3rd Xavier Boderiou, Brittany
Judges: Herve Le Floch, Brittany; Jean Yves Magre
Irish section
1st Alexis Meunier
2nd Sylvain Hamon
3rd Willie McCallum
Judges: Harry Stevenson, Kenny Stewart
Others competing but not in the prizes were Gordon McCready, Renfrew, Scotland; Andrew Carlisle, Northern Ireland; Ashley McMichael, Northern Ireland; and Jonathan Greenlees, Northern Ireland.
Page of 1
p|d
Join the conversation! We always want to hear from our readers, so please use our comments system to provide your thoughts!
Do you have news and information? Be sure to send it to pipes|drums. We can't report what we don't know about! Please remember to support the businesses that advertise and make the not-for-profit p|d possible.
Quality reed selection is a pre-requisite to obtaining a good tone in a pipe corps. Four criteria to consider when testing reeds are balance, vibrancy, volume and strength. Check the High A Low A balance against a single sounding tenor drone - if these two notes are in the ballpark chances are the rest of the notes can be tuned.
