Archive
Our readers often have the best ideas. We were recently contacted by Alex Gandy of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Many know Alex as the pipe-major of the Grade 1 78th Highlanders (Halifax Citadel) Pipe Band, as well as one of the world’s top-flight pipers. Still only 29, he was won a raft of big prizes. Alex […]
The Style Guy has been busy perusing letters, opening emails, and gazing longingly at old photos of some of his style icons: Pipe-Major Angus, D.R. McLennan and, of course, the uber-dapper John David Burgess. Let’s see what answers the messages request and, for the first one, what the cat dragged […]
Two venerable Glasgow-based institutions of piping education and history, the College of Piping and the National Piping Centre, are officially merging operations to become, for now, “the National Piping Centre incorporating the College of Piping.” The College will continue to operate at its premises “offering a full range of operations.” […]
The Grade 1 Ottawa Police Service Pipe Band has decided to cancel its plans to compete in 2018, citing a shortfall in the drum section with “numbers lower than what is considered acceptable in Grade 1 these days,” according to new Pipe-Major Jacob Dicker. The band had hoped to re-emerge […]
Bands at the top are sometimes assumed to have a lot of money, but bands at every level generally commit every last penny to travel and instruments, with little left over for uniforms, and unsponsored bands that travel to the World Championships every year for the last three decades are […]
The organizers of the annual Uist & Barra Invitational Solo Piping Competition have elected to postpone the event due to adverse weather conditions forecasted for the Glasgow area over the next few days. With temperatures hovering around freezing and as much as 5 centimetres of snow possible, the event, originally […]
Knysna, South Africa – February 24, 2018 – The Knysna Celtic Festival was the first event of the South African pipe band season, held at the picturesque seaside town of Knysna in the Western Cape. Hometown band, the Grade 2 Knysna & Districts, won both the MSR and the Medley […]
The Western United States Pipe Band Association has granted a request by the Los Angeles Scots to move to Grade 2. After 20 years in Grade 1, with some success qualifying for the final at the World Pipe Band Championships, the band felt that they are not able to maintain […]
The Competing Pipers Association and the Solo Piping Judges Association have confirmed that their respective code of conduct policies that require members not to compete when their teacher is judging, or judge when their student is competing, respectively, are expected to be adhered to anywhere their members are competing or […]
Burnaby, British Columbia – February 24, 2018 – Alastair Lee of Surrey, British Columbia gained his first Boney Music Memorial Invitational Solo Piping Competition, held at the Halpern Centre at Simon Fraser University. 1st Alastair Lee 2nd Jori Chisholm, Seattle 3rd Andrew Lee, Surrey, British Columbia 4th Kevin McLean, Maple […]
Last leg of winter-long series of contests in Toronto . . .
Free to all, but donations to BC Cancer Foundation encouraged . . .
A never-seen-before image of a piping luminary . . .
Understanding Scotland Musically takes an academic look at the influence of music on current times
Pipers, drummers, dancers and support crew gather to mark historic pipe band milestone . . .
We resume our April 1990 interview with the late Reay Mackay, with the continuation of his thoughts about his foremost teacher, John Wilson of Edinburgh and Toronto. A pupil of Roderick Ross, Wilson would immigrate to Canada in the 1940s to become perhaps the most influential piper in the country’s history. + Reay Mackay: the […]