Tickets for Captain John Medal black-tie Memorial Dinner-Recital getting scarce

In his day, Captain John A. MacLellan MBE  attended not a few black-tie celebration dinners in Edinburgh and Glasgow where some of history’s greatest pipers – including himself – would perform.

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 event.

Ticket sales go until Monday, August 19th, at 23:00, and are priced at £65, available directly from the Eagles.

The competition assigns invited pipers a piobaireachd composed by Capt. John MacLellan, and one judge awards one prize: the Capt. John A. MacLellan MBE Medal.

All four of this year’s invitees are Highland Society of London Gold Medallists:

• Cameron Drummond, Edinburgh
• Jamie Forrester, Haddington, Scotland
• Ian K. MacDonald, Whitby, Ontario
• Iain Speirs, Edinburgh

Deciding the winner will be Jimmy Banks.

Attendees not only get to hear great tunes by great pipers in their prime, but enjoy a single malt whisky dram, a sumptuous dinner, and the possibility of sitting with luminaries of the piping and drumming world.

The event is supported by the William Grant Foundation, by far the biggest sponsor of top-tier solo piping events worldwide.