Archive
Founded in 1950, the Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association’s Northern Ireland Branch will celebrate its seventy-fifth anniversary on February 21, 2026, with an RSPBANI Anniversary Gala to mark the occasion with a formal gala dinner at the La Mon Hotel & Country Club in Newtownards, Co Down. The night will […]
This morning, depending where you stood, the sun rose precisely over Nelson’s Monument at Glasgow Green, where a gaggle of druid-like pipe band zealots camped overnight just to see the annual spectacle. That’s right, today is Worlds Solstice, exactly six months since and six months until the World Pipe Band […]
On Friday, March 6th, St. Columba’s School in Kilmacolm, Scotland, will welcome a mini-band from Grade 1 Shotts & Dykehead Caledonia to perform with the school’s bands at an evening of music. The “We Are On Our Way” concert is about six weeks before 61 members of the school’s thriving […]
If you’re one of the thousands of non-UK citizen pipers and drummers planning to travel to the UK to compete, judge, or simply attend competitions, performances and festivals, you’d be wise to get your papers in order, as significant new border measures will be introduced on February 25th. The new […]
We chat with Emma Hill, Producer of NPC Clubs; Laura-Beth MacCrimmon, Youth & Community Producer; Finlay MacDonald, Director of Piping; and David Shedden, National Youth Pipe Band of Scotland Producer.
Cameron Drummond of Edinburgh will compete to gain a consecutive Captain John A. MacLellan MBE Medal for piobaireachd on August 29th at the 2026 Memorial Dinner & Recital Competition at the Caledonian Hotel in Scotland’s capital city. Organized by the Eagle Pipers’ Society, with sponsorship from the William Grant Foundation, […]
Blair Beaton of Scotia, New York, won the 2026 RSPBA Adult Solo Snare Drumming Intercontinental Championship held at the Irish American Association of Northwest New Jersey, the first in the association’s eight-contest Champion of Champions League. Beaton also earned a spot in the semi-final at the 2026 World Solo Pipe Band Snare Drumming Championship in Glasgow in October.
About sixty fully accredited and potential pipe band ensemble judges from around the globe got together online in a landmark event for the Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association on February 7, 2026, when its Adjudicator Panel Management Board held an online Ensemble Judging Workshop in a five-hour structured and free-flowing […]
The shortage of snare drummers and leading-drummers is pretty much a pipe band tradition. But why? Throughout the hundred-year history of competing pipe bands, pipers and drummers have wondered why the perpetual lack exists, but has anyone ever seriously sought answers? pipes|drums is, as we continue our panel discussion
In the first installment, he talked about the making of the album, and in this final part, Liddell picks out his other favourite track of the 15 on the album. Given that his first pick was a blazing hot duo of hornpipes with more gracenotes in his arrangement than there are stars in the universe, his second choice might surprise you.
Under-appreciated fact: deserving candidates of the Balvenie Medal for Services to Piping must be nominated in order to receive the award. For all those who have wondered why someone who’s tirelessly contributed most of their years to piping and pipe bands, looking for no compensation apart from the satisfaction of […]
Eleven elite players are confirmed to compete in the 79th Uist & Barra Solo Piping Competition, scheduled for March 7th at the National Piping Centre’s Otago Street location: Callum Beaumont, Guardbridge, Scotland Calum Brown, Aberdeen Sandy Cameron, Roy Bridge, Scotland Ben Duncan, Edinburgh Jamie Forrester, Haddington, Scotland Finlay Johnston, Glasgow […]
David Clyde, whose contributions to piping in the Ottawa area have gone largely unrecognized, died on January 29, 2026, in his eighty-fifth year.
Stuart Easton of Palmerston North won all four Open solo piping events and the Manawatu Scottish organization’s Grade 4 band took the only contested grade in the pipe band events at the 161st Turakina Highland Games, the longest-running competition in New Zealand and one of the oldest in the world.
We suspected that an exhaustive list of the contents of Bruce Gandy’s pipe box would make for interesting reading. It did not disappoint.
With two firsts in the two events at the inaugural Masters Invitational Solo Drumming Competition, Steven McWhirter of Glasgow was the obvious overall winner.