More than 170 events at August 2011 Piping Live! Festival

The eighth annual Piping Live! Glasgow International Piping Festival will showcase more than 170 separate events, a new record for the week-long fête that celebrates world piping and drumming from August 8th to 14th. The official kick-off of the 2011 rendition of Piping Live! took place in Glasgow on May 31st, with actor Natalia Tena of Harry Potter movie fame jamming on accordion at George Square with pipers Jonathan Graham and Chris Armstrong, with a call for spectators to “Pick Up the Pipes.”

The list of performers so far secured include many new faces as well as numerous ones familiar to the festival. For pure piping and drumming enthusiasts, the likes of acclaimed solo pipers Alan Bevan, Glenn Brown, Cameron Drummond, Alastair Dunn, Jack Lee, Stuart Liddell, Willie McCallum, Angus MacColl, Niall Stewart and Gordon Walker will be commanding recitals at the National Piping Centre, while in the International Quartet Competition at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall the 78th Fraser Highlanders, Inveraray & District, Manawatu Scottish, ScottishPower, St. Laurence O’Toole and the Strathclyde Police are so far entered to test their mettle.

More mainstream piping-oriented acts include performances by Fred Morrison, the Red Hot Chilli Pipers and the Anxo Lorenzo Trio, as well as a special Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo performance at George Square.

“Piping Live! hosts . . . events across all forms of traditional music as well as the finest pipers and pipe bands from across the globe,” said Piping Live! Festival Director Roddy MacLeod. “We constantly challenge people’s perception of our national instrument and every year we have new fans coming to the festival surprised by the diversity of the music.”

pipes|drums Magazine itself is in on the action, sponsoring the all-day “Street Cafe” on Wednesday, August 10th. The festival again culminates on Sunday, August 14th, with the Masters Invitational Solo Piping Competition at the National Piping Centre.