Archive
The Peel Regional Police Pipe Band won the 2013 North American Championship before large crowds at the Glengarry Highland Games in weather that was more like West Lothian than Ontario. It was the fourth consecutive North American Championship won by the band. The Ontario-based 78th Fraser Highlanders elected to miss the event in order to perform at a concert in Ohio. Total number of bands was 52, an increase of four from 2012. In a sweep that could be unprecedented at Maxville, Alex Gandy won all four light music events, easily winning the Piper of the Day award. Stay tuned to pipes|drums for video from the Grade 1 and Grade 2 band competitions . . .
Jimmy Bell of New Jersey gained the Piobaireachd Society Gold Medal (Canada) on the first day of the Glengarry Highland Games, held at the Maxville Anglican Church against 12 other contestants. In the Gold Medallist Bar to the Gold Medal for previous winners, Alex Gandy of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, won against nine other players. The organizers capped the number of entrants at 22, and reported that eight applicants were turned down in the Gold Medal event. Reay Mackay judged both events.
What piper hasn’t dreamed of having a high-A like Roddy MacLeod’s? The tinkling, perfectly pitched note has become a trademark . . .
It could be the biggest issue of our time: whether or not to place limits on piping band section and/or roster sizes, and two of the world’s foremost authorities on the idiom will go at . . .
The performance arts will turn visual at a unique exhibition of paintings inspired by piping and drumming , past and present, by pipe band legend Robert Mathieson and Scottish historian . . .
With the Skurr of Eigg across the way, the annual Arisaig Highland Games saw Decker Forrest win three of four events, easily taking all three trophies on offer.
Taking another novel approach to the band’s August 14th “Ascension” show at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, Inveraray & District is asking its many fans to vote for the competition medley they would prefer to hear on the night. The band has launched an online poll that will run until the half-way point intermission at the concert itself. The band requested that the pipes|drums act as the “main go-to place for voting,” and will also share the poll on its own website and Facebook page. Readers can listen to the medleys via publicly posted videos from competitions . . .
pipes|drums Magazine is delighted once again to bring our annual Pick The Six contest to our tens of thousands of readers worldwide. Everyone loves . . .
Field Marshal Montgomery continued their unbeaten streak for the 2013 season by winning the third RSPBA major, the Scottish Championship, at Levengrove Park in Dumbarton. Weather was warm and mostly sunny.
Margaret Dunn won the Piobaireachd and the MSR and was fourth in the Hornpipe & Jig, all while looking after her two small boys on another sunny Scottish day at the Airth Highland Games. Eleven competed.
If you were an Australian band of teenaged boys that spent almost a quarter-million-dollars on a trip to compete at a major RSPBA championship, only to find out a month before the date of the . . .
The annual Pipes of Peace concert at the SECC in Glasgow is adding a charitable element to this year’s event on August 15th, working with sponsors R.G. Hardie to raffle a set of Antique Thistle . . .
New Jersey native Derek Midgley was the overall winner against 13 other solo pipers at the annual North Uist Highland Games in warm and sunny weather.
They haven’t won the World’s. They haven’t won an RSPBA major championship. They haven’t even released a CD as a Grade 1 band. But the Inveraray & District Pipe Band, with little more than . . .
Greig Canning won his third straight McArthur Trophy for best overall at the Tomintoul Highland Games, in remote Banffshire. Only nine turned out for the senior solo piping, despite rare 29 degrees and sunshine . . .
The 78th Fraser Highlanders Pipe Band continued its consistent path upward with a win of the Grade 1 competition at the Cambridge Highland Games on a perfectly sunny and breezy day . . .