Piping Live! Festival Manager Helen Urquhart highlights a few exciting additions for 2026

Piping Live! Festival Manager Helen Urquhart is right now probably the busiest person in the piping and drumming world. Some way, somehow, she always makes things happen.

Since the first edition of the festival in 2003, then with the name “Piping Hot,” the eight days of recitals, competitions, showcases, displays, panel discussions, and community meet-ups have grown into one of the biggest music-related events not simply in Scotland, but in the whole of the UK.

The 2026 edition begins on Sunday, August 9th, with the Masters Solo Piping Competition, where 21 of the world’s top solo pipers vie for prizes in piobaireachd and MSR events, the overall winner securing an invitation to the 2026 Glenfiddich Championships.

While the Festival’s roots are in, and have continued to spread, in Highland piping competition, Piping Live! is today an expansive showcase of all things piping and, increasingly, pipe band drumming.

We asked Helen Urquhart if she might free up 10 minutes to talk about a few new highlights of this year’s festival, and – as she is always prone to do – somehow found the time to make it happen.

For those who also like reading, here’s a transcript of our discussion, with minor edits for written clarity:

pipes|drums: We are really happy to have you at a very busy time in your schedule, Helen Urquhart. She is head of events and Piping Live! Festival Manager, and she is in the home stretch right now of organizing the 2026 Piping Live! Festival. Really appreciate you taking the time, Helen. I know you’re busy.

Helen Urquhart: Thank you for having me.

pipes|drums: You bet. With only there’s only a few days left, you know, before Piping Live! kicks off. How are things shaping up?

Helen Urquhart: Things are coming together really well. last year we introduced our new festival site and we have made some tweaks and changes based on that new layout that we had last year and we’re hoping that this year is going to be even more filled with music and fun and lots of places for people to sit down and you know, all of the things that we sort of looked at from last year. but it’s all shaping up really well to be another Great week of music.

pipes|drums: Sunday, August 9th, is the official start with the Masters Solo Piping Competition. We know about big events like that, the International Quartets, the Masters, the Pipe-Major Alasdair Gillies Memorial Challenge, Pipe Idol . . . Can you highlight a few of your favourite not-so-prominent events happening at this year’s festival?

Helen Urquhart: Definitely. We’ve got a brand-new Drum Corps Series on at Centre Stage each day at one o’clock, with Simon Fraser University, St. Laurence O’Toole, Peoples Ford Boghall & Bathgate Caledonia, and Shotts & Dykehead taking part. They play their competition sets, and it’s something brand new for the festival that we think is going to bring a bit of a different audience for us.

On top of that, we’ve got our Maket Collective events, which are all about promoting and amplifying the voices of women in piping and drumming.

We’ve got our Maket Ambassadors Showcase on Monday, with an amazing array of different women performing. The St. Laurence O’Toole quintet is coming, as well as some drummers, and Hazel Whyte, who’s one of our ambassadors, is doing a duet as well. We’re really excited about that.

There’s also a panel on Wellness in Your Art, all about how people, if you play music, how you find time and don’t feel guilty about doing the other life stuff – when you need to practice and you need to make room for your art and how you engage with making time to play and understand your music. That’s going to be a really interesting, different look at how amateurs and professionals can carve out that time to make space for their art in their daily lives.

We’ve also got an exciting strand of music that we received extra funding for from Creative Scotland – the Ceol Nua strand. New music that Matt Welsh has developed, with Erwan Keravek from Brittany bringing over 20 pipers, and he has reworked Terry Riley’s minimalist avant-garde piece, “In C,” for bagpipes.

It’s a free event; you just have to claim tickets on the website. It’s at the Barrowland Ballroom – a free gig for avant-garde bagpipes. It’s going to be just the most amazing night; I can’t wait to hear that and see it all come to fruition. They’re also doing some Philip Glass pieces the next day, Wednesday afternoon, at the Piping Centre.

Then on the Thursday we’ve got a brand-new piece called Continuum for Bagpipes that’s going to happen at the Kelvingrove Museum, which is purely drones. So there’s no chanters at all. It’s just 20 pipers with different drone sounds coming in and out. So

I think we’ve got everything from the very traditional to the absolutely out there, at the end of the spectrum. I think there’s going to be some really interesting things.

pipes|drums: And the addition of the Drum Corps Series: any chance you’re going to change the name of Piping Live! to Piping & Drumming Live!?

Helen Urquhart: Maybe! That’s definitely something we’d have to look at. I’m not sure about the trademark. It’s a bit long, so might not fly, but we want to make more room for the drummers because we know that they are a super-important part of the whole community and maybe don’t quite get celebrated enough.

pipes|drums: So the avant-garde piece is experimental, pushing the boundaries. Matt Welch is always on top of looking at the bigger picture of what Highland pipes and other pipes can do. and you got you got funding for the Minimalist programming. Tell us more about that.

Helen Urquhart: It was this time last year when Creative Scotland announced that they were developing a strand of funding called the Expanded Festivals Fund, for festivals and events across Scotland to develop the programming that they really wanted to do, but didn’t have the money or the capacity to do it. It was to make sure that these art forms could expand what they were doing. It’s a project that Artistic Director Finlay MacDonald has wanted to bring to Piping Live! for a number of years now.

When we saw the criteria, we knew that this was going to be the fund that fitted. If there was ever going to be a year to make it happen, this was going to be it. We were really delighted to get Creative Scotland funding

It was only confirmed in at the start of May that we would be getting the funding, so from May until August, delivery has been a bit of a handbrake turn, getting the venue booked and the artists arranged, and we’re excited to see Irwan and his team of Breton bombardes, binioùs and doh pipes, and this amazing piece that we’re excited about bringing to Glasgow.

pipes|drums: Can’t wait to get to that. We know you’re busy, so anything else before we wrap?

Helen Urquhart: We are excited about year two of the new Festival site and all of the amazing music that we’ve got across it. There are some really interesting little nuggets throughout the program: we’ve got on Tuesday, Glasgow Libraries & Glasgow Museums are bringing a showcase of the People’s Palace Museum, which is currently closed, and Book Bug for under fives.

And Book Bug is a project to get mums and young babies reading and telling stories. Book Bug is coming; they’re a big character, it’s very exciting. There will be a lot of under-fives on the Tuesday morning.

Our Community Piping Clubs are doing a showcase on the Monday. But then there are things like the Pibroch Network, which is doing their big sing where you can come along and kind of learn about canntaireachd, and that sort of thing.

And the one that I always love is the Listening Party. This year it is [Vale of Atholl’s 1996] Live ‘n’ Well album. They’ll be getting some of the people that took part in the recording, Tuesday afternoon at 3:45. They play the album and talk to the people about the making of the album. I always think these amazing shared experiences are something that you kind of can’t replicate.

It’s a seminal pipe band album and that changed the way pipe bands think about concerts – a really exciting way of getting folk together to reminisce a bit, but chat about what made it so special.

Those are some of the lovely things that we’ve got going on, different ways for people to connect to each other and talk about things they might have missed and new experiences.

“That’s what I love about Piping Live! every year: the friendships and the connections that people make across the piping, drumming community that make it really special.” – Helen Urquhart

pipes|drums: It’s definitely the place to be – the centre of piping year-round, but really the centre of piping and drumming in August every year. Good luck with this year’s festival. We’re sure it’s going to be another whiz-bang affair. We really appreciate the time you took out of your very busy schedule on what’s supposed to be your day off.

Helen Urquhart: Thank you very much for having me, and we look forward to seeing you in August!

pipes|drums: That’s Helen Urquhart, Head of Events for the National Piping Centre year-round, and also Festival Manager for Piping Live!, and she does a magnificent job.

pipes|drums will be at the 2026 Piping Live! Festival, so be sure to stay tuned for our daily coverage throughout the week.