Archive
Matt Pantaleoni of St. Louis was the overall winner at the Birnam Highland Games, held on a sunny and warm late-summer day that is popular with solo pipers . . .
Field Marshal Montgomery finished a perfect season by winning the fifth and final RSPBA major, the Cowal Pipe Band Championship, in an event that was historic for several additional reasons. It marked the final championship for St. Laurence O’Toole Pipe-Major Terry Tully, who is retiring after the 2013 season following more than 30 years as leader of the band, highlighted by its World Championship victory in 2010. It also marked the end – at least for now – of the Cowal Pipe Band Championship . . .
After three competition seasons, Ken Constable has resigned as Leading-Drummer of the Grade 1 Toronto Police Pipe Band. The move comes less than two weeks after the band . . .
With more than 2,000 entries to the 2013 pipes|drums Pick the Six contest, Richard Turnbull of Torphichen, Scotland, has won more than $3,500 in prizes . . .
The annual Pipe Idol competition at the Piping Live! Glasgow International Festival of Piping is one of the festival’s original events and, after 10 years, has become one of the world’s great challenges . . .
ohn-Angus Smith of London was the overall winner at the annual Lonach Gathering, where 15 pipers competed in the senior events in mostly warm with occasional cold showers. There was the usual strong attendance by non-Scottish contestants, many of whom . . .
he second day of the Argyllshire Gathering took the light music events outdoors in the traditional fashion, with the winner of the Gold Medal leading the competitors to the park. Newly-minted Oban Gold Medalist Alan Bevan was pipe-major to a strong group of 36 pipers with a better-than-usual sound. The front rank comprised all British Columbia contestants – Senior Piobaireachd winner Jack Lee, Silver Medalist Jamie Troy and Andrew Bonar, who was fourth in the Gold Medal. Weather was warm and sunny and about 22 degrees.
The three major piobaireachd awards at the 2013 Argyllshire Gathering were each won by pipers from British Columbia, Canada, as Alan Bevan took the Gold Medal, Jack Lee the Senior and James P. Troy the Silver Medal in a historic sweep at the Oban competition. It was Lee’s second win of the Senior Piobaireachd, while Bevan added the Argyllshire Gathering Gold Medal to the Northern Meeting equivalent that he won in 2008.
After three seasons following the resurrection of the once-dormant Grade 1 Dysart & Dundonald Pipe Band of Fife, Scotland, Greig Canning has resigned as pipe-major. The moves come a day after . . .
Field Marshal Montgomery emerged 2013 World Pipe Band Champions after a 12-band Final competition that comprised Medley and MSR events. The weather on Sunday was a mixture of sun, rain and very windy conditions that at times proved extremely challenging for several bands. It was the third consecutive World’s title for Field Marshal Montgomery and the band’s first-ever win of the World Pipe Band Drumming prize.With the World’s spread over two days, the prize-giving ceremony was quick, and the event was done and dusted by 6:45 pm.
The first day of the two-day 2013 World Pipe Band Championships saw several grades decided as well as the qualifying bands for the Grade 1 Final on Sunday. Buchan Peterson from Aberdeen, Scotland, won the Grade 2 competition in an MSR Final determined earlier in the day by a Medley qualifying round in two heats. There were massive separations in the rankings between judges in the Grade 2 final, for example, St. Thomas ASlumni receiving a first and a tenth in piping. In Grade 1, the following bands qualified to compete in the Sunday Final: Boghall & Bathgate, Field Marshal Montgomery, ScottishPower, Simon Fraser University, St. Laurence O’Toole, Greater Glasgow Police Scotland, Shotts & Dykehead, Canterbury Caledonia Society, Inveraray & District, Cullybackey, Mannawatu Scottish, and Dowco-Triumph Street . .
Thursday and Friday of the 2013 Piping Live! Glasgow International Festival of Piping saw the usual day-after from the Pre-World’s Concert, with those who relived the Inveraray & District Ascension show into the wee hours of the morning looking no worse for wear, and ready to . . .
A review of “Ascension,” the concert by the Inveraray & District Pipe Band, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow, August 14, 2013
“The forecast’s nae looking tae guid,” was the phrase on the mouths of those who speak, or try to speak, with the local accent, as the Wednesday at the Piping Live! Glasgow International Festival of Piping – Day 4 . . .
Gordon Walker won his third Lord Todd Bar Recital Challenge at another packed house at the University of Strathclyde in the heart of Glasgow, playing first against Stuart Liddell, Callum Beaumont and Angus MacColl. It was the eleventh time that the competition took place, with its pre-Piping Live! roots going back to 2003. Walker dazzled the audience and, more importantly, the secret judges planted in the audience by organizer Willie McCallum, with a robust and resonant pipe that stayed well put for the entirety of the 30-plus-minute performance. Callum Beaumont made his first appearance in the event and acquitted himself supremely well, as did six-time winner Angus MacColl . . .
If it’s Tuesday it must be Glasgow and the third day of the 2013 Piping Live! Glasgow International Festival of Piping . . .