Cameron Drummond awarded 2025 Captain John A. MacLellan MBE Memorial Medal
Edinburgh – August 30, 2025 – A capacity crowd of well-dressed guests gathered to hear four of the world’s top solo pipers perform in a recital setting at the Caledonian Hotel in Scotland’s capital city’s city centre for the annual Captain John A. MacLellan MBE Memorial Dinner & Recital Competition.
Ultimately, judge Jimmy Banks awarded Cameron Drummond of Edinburgh the 2025 Captain John A. MacLellan MBE Memorial Medal for his rendition of “The Edinburgh Piobaireachd.” It was Drummond’s first time winning the prize.
Also performing were Jamie Forrester, Haddington, Scotland, “Farewell to the Queen’s Ferry”; Ian K. MacDonald, Whitby, Ontario, “The Phantom Piper of Corrieyarrick”; and Iain Speirs, Edinburgh, “A Welcome for Patrick Struan.”
Since 2011, the Captain John A. MacLellan MBE Memorial Dinner & Recital Competition has become probably the premier event of its kind, and tickets for the 2025 rendition on Saturday, August 30th, at Edinburgh’s five-star Caledonian Hotel are becoming increasingly scarce, according to the Eagle Pipers Society, organizers of the unique occasion.
The competition assigns invited pipers a piobaireachd composed by Capt. John MacLellan. The competition has helped to raise the stature of MacLellan’s piobaireachd competitions, several of which have been played by pipers in the last 12 years to gain some of the biggest prizes in piping.
The Eagle Pipers’ Society was started around 1960 as an Edinburgh-based social group for pipers in the area. It took the name because the group of co-founders, which included MacLellan, would meet at the Eagle Bar on the Lawnmarket in Edinburgh. The establishment subsequently moved and the Ensign Ewart pub now occupies the original premises. The organization eventually ran a celebrated solo competition in the 1970s.
The Eagle Pipers’ Society ceased functioning for 25 years until it was resurrected in 2010. It now boasts an international membership, with regular meetings from about October to May. The Eagle Pipers necktie, which members receive on joining, has become a ubiquitous emblem worn by solo pipers worldwide.
The Caledonian Hotel is one of Scotland’s finest and most highly rated. It is situated almost at the western foot of Edinburgh Castle at the start of Princes Street and Princes Street Gardens in the centre of Edinburgh.
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