Piping Live! 2015 unveils program; tickets now on sale

new Piobaireachd Tutor. Alex Gandy will be recitalling at noon. All day and night (hopefully), piper Rikki Evans will be trying for a world record of continuous playing for various causes. He hopes to go full 24 hours. No word on what moisture control device he’ll be using.

Thursday’s squeaky bum time for competing bands, but they can distract themselves with a full slate of PL! events, including the last round and grand finale of Pipe Idol. Murray Henderson and Duncan Grant will reprise their March Big Music Society show in the evening at Cottiers Theatre, and, at the same time, International Piping Duets, featuring the Bellón Maceiras Duo and Finlay MacDonald and Chris Stout, will perform at the School of Art.

Throughout the festival various pipe bands of all grades and nationalities will perform throughout the city centre of Glasgow, with George Square returning as a venue following last year’s renovations for the Commonwealth Games. The good folks at Glenfiddich will be offering free samples of their glorious products, and the Festival Club will be strictly off limits to members of competing pipe bands by their pipe-majors (but packed anyway) into the wee hours.

The World’s occupies Friday and Saturday, but Piping Live! hosts the After-World’s Shindig beginning at 7:30 on Saturday night, featuring Flook, Fred Morrison and Patrick Molard, and then on Sunday, after the competition and celebrations have ended, there’s still more Piping Live!, with the Gordon Duncan Memorial Competition at 3 pm, and an event celebrating 40 Years of Piping from the Tannahill Weavers – featuring among others pipers Lorne MacDougall, Iain MacInnes and Duncan Nicholson – in the evening.

The seven-day festival on its own will total 150 performances, 650 artists, and estimated 30,000 attendees, and more than 20 hours of free live-streamed events.

pipes|drums is once again an official media partner with Piping Live!