Archive

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.

Moira Demesne, a park in the picturesque village of Moira, Northern Ireland, was the venue for the 2025 Lisburn & Castlereagh Championships, the latest event in the Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association Northern Ireland Branch circuit of competitions.

Ulster Scottish from Philadelphia was the top winner at the 2025 Chicago Highland Games, the Midwest Pipe Band Association’s largest sanctioned event of the year, and one of the biggest pipe band competitions by the number of contestants outside of the United Kingdom. Thirty-nine bands competed in sunny weather at DuPage County Fairgrounds.

After a tie was broken by the ensemble mark, Peoples Ford Boghall & Bathgate Caledonia won the first Edinburgh Pipe Band Competition, held at George Watson’s College, and put on by the Lothians & Borders Branch of the Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association.

Father’s Day 2025 is the perfect time to officially announce the new “Gandy Bagpipe” by McCallum Bagpipes, an exact reproduction of the 1939 instrument played for many years by Ray Gandy in Victoria, British Columbia, then by Bruce Gandy and, most recently, by Alex Gandy. That makes three generations of Gandy […]

Immaculately sunny, breezy and warm weather benefited the 50th anniversary Georgetown Highland Games, where Florida’s City of Dunedin won Grade 2 against three other bands in the top competitive event.

King Charles III has made Northern Ireland’s George Ussher of Lisburn, Northern Ireland, a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) and Roderick Buchanan of Lochgilphead, Scotland, and Angus Tulloch of Kingussie, Scotland, Members of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2025 King’s Birthday Honours. […]

In the 25 years since the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and the National Piping Centre introduced a Bachelor of Arts Music Degree Course in Highland pipes, many musically accomplished and highly educated pipers have gone on to make a career with their art, including Steven Blake, John Dew, Ross Miller, […]

The Mid Ulster Championships were held in excellent weather at Cookstown High School, and it was Closkelt that came out ahead of Ravara, which marked its return to Grade 1 following the band’s upgrade after the 2024 season.

We checked in with Inveraray & District pipers Connor Jardine and Ross Miller for a natter about the celebration, which promises to be one of the most memorable parties in pipe band history.

The Bellingham Scottish Gathering near the USA-Canada border typically sees several Canadian bands make the journey, but this year, none attended the event at Marine Park, although several amateur solo pipers made the quick trip across the boundary. Canadian pipe bands, so far, are not generally attending American competitions due to ongoing difficulties between the two countries.

With about eight weeks to go, the Commonwealth Pipes & Drums of Massachusetts is yet to know whether it must compete in Grade 3A or Grade 2 at the World Championships. The band took official steps almost a month ago to appeal to the Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association to […]

After reviewing the applications from several pipers, the Jimmy McIntosh Piobaireachd Scholarship committee settled on Peter Lui of Nashville as the recipient of the prestigious award to assist him in the study of piobaireachd in “the Balmoral tradition.” Lui will begin his instruction later in June in Pittsburgh with a […]

Joining the growing trend of associations organizing and staging outdoor competitions independently, the Pipers & Pipe Band Society of Ontario held the inaugural Hamilton Gathering, the organization’s first sanctioned event of the 2025 season, on the grounds of the Scottish Rite in Ontario’s steel city.