Archive
R.G. Hardie & Co. of Glasgow is taking a different approach by simplifying its offerings to make choosing that much easier. Equally important, the company is enabling its worldwide network of dealers to keep in-demand Peter Henderson- and Hardie-branded pipes in stock and ready to ship to pipers eager to get their hands on their new instrument.
Stuart Easton of Palmerston North, New Zealand, closed on Frank MacKinnon’s record on 14 by winning his twelfth R.U. Brown Cup for light music. Willie Rowe of Fielding, New Zealand, won the Everest Cup Piobaireachd contest and was second in the Brown Cup to gain the overall prize.
Field Marshal Montgomery won Grade 1 against two other bands, marking the first competition for the 13-time World Champions under Pipe-Major Matt Wilson, who succeeded pipe band legend Richard Parkes last autumn.
“I have actually made the suggestion that Northern Ireland should have their own association. They can be affiliated in the same ways as we are. I think it would put them in a much stronger position to have their own association up there in Northern Ireland Pipe Band Association. What would be wrong with that?”
Glasgow’s Owain Woodman Carr, Tony Doherty of East Kilbride, Scotland, and Rye, Australia’s Sophie Stringer were the Grade 1, Grade 2, and Grade 3 overall winners at the UK’s Competition League for Amateur Solo Pipers (CLASP) in-person competition held at the National Piping Centre’s McPhater Street building.
David Wilton is the pipe-major of a Grade 1 band on a heater. Police Scotland Fife is fresh off winning the Lochore (Benarty) Highland Games, beating Peoples Ford Boghall & Bathgate Caledonia and ScottishPower, and earlier in 2024 delivered a sold-out “Dancing on the Beat” (see what they did there?) […]
North Stratton, Craig Sutherland and Robert Graham were the big winners at ScotFestBC, also known as the British Columbia Highland Games. Grade 2 was the top contested pipe band competition, North Stratton winning both events against two other entrants. Sutherland enjoyed a perfect sweep in the Open solo piping, the Piobaireachd held on Friday, and the MSR and Hornpipe & Jig on Saturday, and Graham won both Open snare drumming events.
When Terry Tully talks, you’d be wise to listen. How the legendary piper, composer, teacher and pipe-major is leading the IPBA into a new era.
Grade 1 at RSPBA-sanctioned events in the UK saw another winner, after Police Scotland Fife received three out of four first-place rankings in the seven-band competition at the annual Lochore (Benarty) Highland Games at Lochore Meadows Country Park in the Kingdom of Fife. Four bands officially categorized as Grade 2 played up in the MSR event.
Sean McKeown won the Professional Piper of the Day aggregate on a sunny and warm day at the Northumberland Scottish Festival & Highland Games, the third outdoor event of the Ontario season. Kyle Wardell was the Professional Drummer of the Day. In the amateurs, Jean-Sebastien Gamache won the Grade 1 aggregate, and Aidan Hogan won the overall across the Grade 1 amateur snare events.
Bruce Gandy of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, won the 37th United States Piping Foundation Amateur & Professional Piping Championships at the Roselle Center for the Arts at the University. Gandy was awarded the overall prize – his eighth – on a Piobaireachd preference to break a tie with Houston’s Nick Hudson.
We continue our exclusive five-part pipes|drums Interview with Eric Rigler of Los Angeles, by far the most-heard Celtic musician in history. In Part 1 of the pipes|drums Interview with Los Angeles native Eric Rigler, he discussed his early years and the factors that led him to want to move to Scotland to study piping and […]
Matt Fraser hopes to make practice a win-win for pipers and drummers who want to gain an edge using his MusoLink app. The pipe-major of Grade 1 Hawthorn of Melbourne, Australia, launched the MusoLink app last November, and now, as the World Championships and other big-time competitions approach for bands […]
Exclusively for subscribers, an in-depth and insightful assessment of the latest full-length pipe band recording.
We’re pleased to present videos of the Grade 2 competition and Grade 1 performance at the Georgetown Highland Games on June 14, 2025.
It’s probably purely coincidental that the Commonwealth Pipes & Drums logo features a Minuteman, a Revolutionary War private soldier ready to fight for fair representation. Still, after a six-month process, the Massachusetts-based band will be permitted to compete at the 2025 World Championships as the Grade 3A group they are under the Eastern United States Pipe Band Association, the band’s home association.