Super-Saturday for solo pipers and drummers

Saturday, October 29, will see two of the most important solo competitions of the year converge with the Glenfiddich Solo Piping Championship and the World Solo Drumming Championship taking place on the same day.

The World Solo Drumming, to be held at Bathgate Academy in Bathgate, Scotland, brings together the world’s top pipe band snare drummers in an event open to all side drummers older than 18. Several heats will narrow down the field to compete in two final competitions.

Jim Kilpatrick of the House of Edgar-Shotts & Dykehead Pipe Band, will be vying to break his own record of 15 World Solo titles, by far the most ever won. Other favourites in the field are Gordon Brown, Boghall & Bathgate; Stephen Creighton, St. Laurence O’Toole; Reid Maxwell, Simon Fraser University; Eric Ward, Strathclyde Police; and Barry Wilson, ScottishPower.

Meanwhile at Blair Atholl, Scotland, the Glenfiddich Championships will conclude the 2005 Scottish solo season in an invitational event that pits the winners of the year’s biggest solo piping prizes against each other.

In that competition, Willie McCallum of Bearsden, Scotland, will also be trying to better his own record of victories, going after his eighth Glenfiddich title.

Also competing will be: