Bradley Parker spins the 2026 Wheel, wins the fortune

Midlothian, Scotland – April 25, 2026 – Bradley Parker of Glasgow was the overall winner of the 2026 Pipe-Major’s Wheel of Fortune Invitational Solo Piping & Humour Competition, held at the Danderhall Miners’ Club before the customary appreciative and lively audience. Parker won both the Medley and the MSR events.

The contest is organized by Grade 2 City of Edinburgh, and pits eight fast-handed and naturally funny pipers in a unique day in the piping and drumming world. There’s a traditional MSR event, but also a Freestyle Medley with creative requirements: the content of each piper’s selection is determined by spinning the Golden Chanter, which dictates the music they must include in their performance.

Each piper then has to tell a joke after their medley performance, and the winner of the £100 prize is decided by audience vote. The always-original pipes|drums was pleased to sponsor the Joke event.

The day also featured a silent auction to which pipes|drums contributed a lifetime subscription to the online publication.

Bradley Parker was recently made pipe-sergeant of the Grade 1 Peoples Ford Boghall & Bathgate Caledonia.

Wheel of Fortune Medley
1st Bradley Parker (£500)
2nd Cameron May, Lesmahagow, Scotland (£300)
3rd John Dew, Glasgow (£150)
Judges: Ian Duncan, Douglas Murray

MSR
1st Bradley Parker (£150)
Judges: Ian Duncan, Douglas Murray

Best Joke: Craig Muirhead, Banockburn, Scotland £100, whose joke involved his skills in gardening, stone masonry and joinery going unnoticed, while his aptitude at sheep-sh^gging was well-remembered.

Also competing were Sandy Cameron, Roy Bridge, Scotland; Angus MacPhee, Inverness, Scotland; Sarah Muir, East Kilbride, Scotland; and Dan Nevans, Glasgow.

Wheel of Fortune Medley pipers spin the wheel of 12 numbers that correspond to these types of tunes:

• Tune by Alan MacDonald
• Tune with an animal, bird or fish in its title
• Donald MacLeod composition
• Female name in the tune title
• Gaelic or Irish slow air
• Gordon Duncan composition
• Tune by G.S. McLennan
• A hornpipe
• A tune composed by the competitor spinning the wheel
• A polka
• Two jigs
• Two reels

Each piper must include five of the categories in their medley. Four categories are determined by them spinning the Wheel’s Golden Chanter when they arrive at the event, and the fifth category is decided by a member of the audience who spins the Golden Chanter as the piper comes on to play. Each competitor gets a Joker they can use at any time to deselect one selected category, allowing them to spin again for a different requirement. The categories can be put together in any order to form one continuous medley, along with a maximum of three tunes of their choice that don’t fit a category.

Last year’s Pipe-Major’s Wheel of Fortune winner was Sarah Muir, with a first in the Medley.  Cameron Drummond won the MSR, and Brian Lamond of Dunfermline, Scotland, told the best joke.

City of Edinburgh was originally known as Woolmet & Danderhall, a frequent Grade 1 prize-winner in the 1970s. After Woolmet Colliery shut down in the 1980s, the band continued under a new identity.