Archive

The Grade 1 Vale of Atholl Pipe Band has made another leadership change, this time very much planned, with the appointment of Alistair “Bongo” McNab to the role of . . .

Canterbury Caledonian continued its success at the annual Jenny Mair Square Day competition at Palmerston North Square. Canterbury won first overall, taking both piping and drumming titles. Earlier in the year the band won the New Zealand Pipe Band Championship. The Square Day contests were started in 1980 and are held on the second Saturday in December. The events have gained a reputation for being relaxed and well run, and generally regarded, especially at Grade 1 level, as the most important New Zealand contest outside of the annual national championship.

Andy Fuller of Adelaide, Australia, reviews Fergus Muirhead’s ‘A Piper’s Tale – Stories from the World’s Top Pipers,’ a 204-page book that he finds – perhaps surprisingly – very engaging for pipers, drummers, enthusiasts or even the great masses unafflicted by the strange, benign virus that is the GHB

In the second part of our exclusive interview with world renowned piper Jack Lee, he discusses his history in pipe bands, including the Port Moody, City of Victoria, CP Air, and, of course, Simon Fraser University. In Part 2, Lee speaks frankly about prizes narrowly missed and the critical nickname by the haters for SFU as “The Borg” – an unstoppable force in the Pacific Northwest that sucks in all around it. He goes into the early days of SFU, and the origins of quality piping and drumming in British Columbia that helped set up a positive environment in which the eventual six-time World Champions could evolve.

Scott McCann, Staunton, Illinois, was the overall winner of the seventh annual Balmoral Classic, which incorporates the United States Junior Solo Highland Piping Championship . . .

The amateur solo piping competitions introduced to the Newark, New Jersey, Metro Express workshops last year by Scotland’s National . . .

pipes|drums has a rich archive of material that we worked to compile over the last three decades. From the November 1997 issue of the former print magazine that evolved into the all-online publication you enjoy today, is a fascinating glimpse into the personality of Robert Reid, the legendary piper and pipe-maker whose piobaireachd playing was in the “Cameron style” after many years of tutelage from the primary Cameron exponent, John MacDougall Gillies. These letters written to Dr. Norman McLeod, the first President of the Pipers Society of Ontario, are full of commentary about the Piobaireachd Society, with which Reid was often at odds.

Pipe-Major William “Billy” Maxwell, President of Field Marshal Montgomery Pipe Band and the band’s founding Pipe-Major, died on November 21, 2013. Billy was a giant of a character in piping in Northern Ireland . . .

Is there a more all-round successful piper currently competing today than Jack Lee? Not likely, and that’s not likely to change for the foreseeable future. Since the 1970s, the Simon Fraser University Pipe Band Pipe-Sergeant has consistently scooped up the world’s biggest prizes in solo piping, while helping to guide his band to six World’s titles, along the way teaching thousands of young pipers and conducting workshops with dozens of bands. His solo achievements are huge and they continue, most recently by winning the Senior Piobaireachd at the Argyllshire Gathering and the MSR at the Glenfiddich Championships. The first installment of five, continuing our series of interviews that dates back to the mid-1980s.

The famous pipe band personality, Tom Anderson, was feted at a dinner with a large crowd of friends and family at the Riverstone Event Centre in Welland, Ontario, on November 23rd in honour . . .

It’s by far the most prestigious pipe band concert of each year, and in 2014 the annual Pre-World’s show at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall will be by the Great Glasgow Police Scotland Pipe Band, one . . .

Two of the best pipe bands in the United States are combining, with Grade 1 Oran Mor of Albany, New York, and Grade 2 Stuart Highlanders of Massachusetts the latest to . . .

The National Youth Pipe Band of Scotland (NYPBoS) is donating proceeds from its St. Andrew’s Day concert on November 30th at the SECC Clyde Auditorium in Glasgow to the Philippines . . .

Jim McGillivray continues his exclusive series with a look at the music of James Hill, “The Hornpipe King” of Northumberland. Little-known to Highland pipers, Hill was a fiddler originally from Scotland who gained renown in the first half of the 1800s. Not many of his compositions have been picked up for Highland pipes, but “The High Level” and “The Hawk” are known for their cheerful and soaring melodies. Included are sound files by Northumbrian piper Pauline Cato and McGillivray on the Deger pipe.

Aaron Stone of Auburn, Washington, scored two firsts and a third to capture the overall title at the 2013 George Sherriff Amateur Invitational Memorial Solo Piping Competition, held at St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church in downtown Hamilton, Ontario. Organized by the Niagara-Hamilton Branch of the Pipers & Pipe Band Society of Ontario, The eighteenth annual edition of the competition put together 10 of the year’s most successful amateur solo pipers from around North America. Stay tuned to pipes|drums for high definition video and audio of the MSR event at the 2013 Sherriff . . .

At a time when many pipe bands around the world struggle to stay afloat from year to year, the fact that the Kirkintilloch Pipe Band of Kirkintilloch, Scotland, celebrated its 125th birthday . . .