Piping Live! 2025: striking a balance between passionate performance and committed competition – Part 2

We continue with Part 2 of our conversation with Finlay MacDonald, Artistic Director of the Piping Live! Glasgow International Festival of Piping and Director of Piping at the National Piping Centre in Glasgow, and John Mulhearn, Piping Live!’s Artistic Planning & Programming Director and the National Piping Centre’s Head of Piping Studies and the head of the Bachelor of Traditional Music (Piping) degree run by the Centre and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

Working closely with Festival Manager Helen Urquhart, MacDonald and Mulhearn combine their entrenchment in Scottish Celtic folk music and competitive piping to develop eight days of programming designed to entertain, educate, enlighten and even thrill their audiences.

We met MacDonald and Mulhearn to discuss Piping Live! 2025 and the challenges, issues, and rewards of planning and producing the world’s biggest celebration of piping.

In Part 1, the two leaders discussed some of this year’s festival’s highlights and changes. In Part 2, MacDonald and Mulhearn discuss some of the more subtle changes of the week-long event and the evolution of piping, pipe band, and Celtic music over the last three decades.

Here’s a transcription of Part 2, with minor edits for clarity.

Part 2

pipes|drums: I wanted to pick up on competition versus pure performance. What are you seeing? Both of you are virtuoso, elite pipers. Finlay, you’ve never really been a competition-oriented piper, but John, you balance the two with your work. Are you seeing a swing towards, an emphasis on, the pure performance of music, rather than being judged on the music you create?

John Mulhearn: I suppose the keyword is balance. In my primary role at the National Piping Centre, as head of the degree program, it’s quite a good lens through which to view that idea. Being in Scotland, obviously with pipes|drums, you’ve got quite an international outlook. My suspicions are that, outside of Scotland, competition still very much rules the roost in piping and drumming circles. In Scotland, it’s a much more varied picture, and things like the degree program are a huge part of the reason for that.

There is a swing. Everything in piping happens really slowly, and no change comes quickly. So it’s part of a swing that’s been taking place for the last 30 or even 40 years of slow-growing awareness of new performance contexts in which we can use the pipes.

And, yeah, it continues, and it’s really nice to see. There’s a greater diversity in the artistic voice of a lot of Scottish-based pipers these days.

“In Scotland, there’s a healthy broadening and space for everything. Sometimes, let’s call them the “folky” pipers, in some people’s eyes, get pitted against the competitive pipers as if they’re opposing factions. I think that’s a false representation of reality.” – John Mulhearn

From what we see in Scotland, there’s a healthy broadening and space for everything. Sometimes, let’s call them the “folky” pipers, in some people’s eyes, get pitted against the competitive pipers as if they’re opposing factions. I think that’s a false representation of reality. I certainly quite happily exist in all the various different realms of piping. And we do see a lot more of that now.

Going back to your original point, if you were to go back 30 years, there would have been the folky piper and the competitive solo piper, and there would have been the pipe bander, but now there’s much more movement between all of those areas.

pipes|drums: If you go back 30 or 40 years, there was even a separation between solo competitive piping and pipe band competitive piping, where, especially in the UK, the two more often than not didn’t mix.

John Mulhearn: When it comes to Piping Live!, if you circle back to what Finlay was saying, there’s the balance and the program. The competitions are a very popular component of the Festival itself, and we’ve gradually accumulated competitions within the festival program over time. For instance, the Gordon Duncan Memorial, which falls within the Piping Live! program and is another competition. We’ve got the Clasp competitions that take place that week as well. The competition side is inescapable.

The big-ticket events, like the International Quartets, which we’ve mentioned, and the Alasdair Gillies Memorial Recital-Competition, sell out very early, and we’d be foolish not to include them. From a purely practical programming side, they’re guaranteed bums on seats, and people love it.

Finlay MacDonald: One of the best nights of piping I’ve ever heard must have been in 2018 or ’19 at the Alasdair Gillies Memorial Recital-Competition. I was just amazed. I thought, I’m just going to go along as an audience member here and enjoy this. And literally, it was one after the other. Just amazing playing. The players there feel a wee bit more freedom because it’s not, as I said, three judges sitting writing sheets. There are 10 secret judges in the audience, and everyone has their different take. It’s some of the best solo piping I’ve ever heard in my life. It’s great to hear, so we still want to showcase that.

pipes|drums: You mentioned the Gordon Duncan Memorial Competition. Gordon 30 or 40, years ago was one of those pipers who bridged the gap, as an active competitor with Vale of Atholl, but at the same time closely involved with performance-based, folk piping. He played a crucial role in bridging that gap.

Piping Live! originally hinged on the World Pipe Band Championships and the influx of people from the UK and overseas coming into Glasgow. Do you think Piping Live! can exist now without the World Pipe Band Championships, and vice versa? Are the two forever linked, because they are very much a partnership?

Finlay MacDonald: The simple answer is that it would come down to funding and how both events are funded. That’s a very honest, straight-line answer. But assuming funding was still in place, Piping Live! could exist. It would be very different, though we don’t have the critical mass, as you said, of people coming into the city from all over the world for the World Pipe Band Championships.

Helen Urquhart actually made a good point that we did do it on our own in 2021 or ’22 when the World’s wasn’t on due to COVID, and we still ran Piping Live!. But it was very different. I think it could exist, but we wouldn’t be as strong or as buoyant as it is without the World Pipe Band Championships.

We’ve talked about the nature of competing with pipe bands. The World’s is the ultimate for pipe bands. The World’s would definitely exist if we weren’t here, because the bands would still want to come to compete.

It’s symbiotic that we work together. Events Scotland and Glasgow Life see in the strength that it’s the biggest week of piping in the world.  When you think about that, from day one of Piping Live! right through to the end of the World Pipe Band Championships, it’s like piping and drumming heaven.

“We can talk about the music all we want, and the programming, and the diversity of the music, but it brings people together. It’s a focal point. We can’t underestimate the strength of that on its own, and the fact that, yes, for that week you come here, you’re going to meet people who are like-minded and make you feel part of that community.” – Finlay MacDonald

pipes|drums: That’s a good way to put it. Thinking back to the origins of the festival, I can remember the years before Piping Live! was started when, before the World Pipe Band Championships, everyone was sitting around that week with nothing to do, and a lot of tension was built up.

Finlay MacDonald: Piping Live! for the last 22 years has helped to relieve that tension by just allowing people to relax and listen to some good playing. One of the big aims as a festival is about that community. We can talk about the music all we want, and the programming, and the diversity of the music, but it brings people together. It’s a focal point. We can’t underestimate the strength of that on its own, and the fact that, yes, for that week you come here, you’re going to meet people who are like-minded and make you feel part of that community. For me, that’s even above the music. It’s one of the most important things: bringing people together and providing that space to feel that you’re part of that community.

pipes|drums: That’s well said. We could talk for a long time about Piping Live! and the changes that have occurred and what might be on the horizon, but let’s wrap it up there. We appreciate you taking the time to talk about Piping Live! 2025 and beyond.

Finlay MacDonald: Thanks, everyone, and pipes|drums for having us. We look forward to seeing you here.

Stay tuned to pipes|drums for more interviews with leaders in the piping and drumming world.