Super Saturday for world’s best soloists

The biggest day for competing solo pipers and drummers rolls around again on Saturday, October 25th, when the Glenfiddich Invitational Solo Piping Championship and the World Solo Drumming Championship converge in Scotland.

The World Solo Drumming, to be held at Glasgow Caledonian University in Glasgow, 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.

ScottishPower lead-drummer Barry Wilson defends his title, while Jim Kilpatrick of the House of Edgar-Shotts & Dykehead Pipe Band, will try to break his own record of 17 World Solo titles – by far the most ever won. Other perennial favourites in the field are Gordon Brown, Boghall & Bathgate; Stephen Creighton, St. Laurence O’Toole; and Eric Ward, Strathclyde Police.

 

Another contender for the prize is Reid Maxwell of Simon Fraser University, who has placed in the contest almost every time that he has played in it for more than 20 years, but who has not yet captured the award.

 

The pipe band world was astonished when Kilpatrick failed to make the final round of the 2007 World Solo Drumming.

Meanwhile at Blair Atholl, Scotland, the Glenfiddich Championships will conclude the 2008 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 ninth Glenfiddich title.

Also competing will be: