Archive

The annual invitational indoor competitions sponsored by the Uist & Barra Association of Glasgow are ready once again to mark the start of the Scottish solo piping season this year on Saturday, March 1st, at the National Piping Centre’s Otago Street location. Vying for 100-year-old-plus trophies that display many of […]

Pipe music collections of compositions associated with great military regiments like the Scots Guards, Queen’s Own Highlanders, Irish Rangers, and, more recently, Royal Scots and Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders are among the most remarkable and most substantial in the piping library. Now Connor Jardine, Cameron May and Dan Nevans are […]

Piobaireachd clubs and community societies are popping up worldwide, and the Canadian province of New Brunswick is no exception. Colton Patterson contributes the story of the NB Piobaireachd Club and how easy it is to organize your own non-competition, performance-based group to celebrate ceol mor.

The Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association is polling member bands about whether they would like to move the UK Championships date from July 12th to May 3rd. According to sources, if the date changes, the contest will still be held at the Royal Highland Centre in Ingliston, on the west […]

Hot on the heels of the sale of two sets of pipes once owned by the legendary Robert Reid, Noonans Mayfair auction house in London is selling the military medal once awarded to one of the pipers who gallantly played at the “Dargai Assault” on October 20, 1897, in the […]

The Clan Donald Trust for the Gaelic Performing Arts is adding to its already long list of sponsored piobaireachd competitions with the Charles MacArthur Memorial Prize for Piobaireachd at this year’s Isle of Skye Highland Games on August 5th I Portree. This brings the organization’s collective prize money put up […]

“Lament for Captain MacDougall,” “Lament for Pipe-Major Hugh Fraser,” “Lament for the Duke of Hamilton,” “MacKenzie of Gairloch’s Salute,” “Prince Charles’ Lament,” “Salute to the MacCrimmon Cairn at Borreraig,” and “You’re Welcome, Ewen Lochiel” are the latest additions to the exclusive series of recordings by Captain John MacLellan MBE, with an introduction by Colin MacLellan.

Bill Livingstone, one of the most influential Highland pipers in history, died in Whitby, Ontario, on February 22, 2025, a month before his eighty-third birthday. A man of firsts – the first pipe-major to lead a non-Scottish band to a Grade 1 World Championship title, the first North American piper […]

With first prizes in both events, Finlay Johnston of Glasgow was the easy winner of the third annual Ardmore Cup Invitational Solo Piping Competition held at St. Declan’s Village Hall.

Liam Nunes of Virginia investigates the effect of World War II on the Highland pipe and pipe bands. His discoveries and conclusions are illuminating.

The Eagle Pipers Society has confirmed that the Captain John A. MacLellan MBE Memorial Dinner & Recital Competetion will return to the Waldorf-Astoria Caledonian Hotel in Edinburgh on Saturday, August 3oth. The annual competition invites four world-class pipers to the event. Each is assigned a piobaireachd composed by, or closely […]

Mike Huddle of New Brighton, Minnesota, won the 2025 Skye K. Richendrfer Challenge Cup for novice piobaireachd, held at Macalester College, the contest’s namesake’s alma mater.

The 2025 New Zealand Championships will feature 57 bands overall, including six in Grade 1, 17 in Grade 4B, and 12 in Juvenile, making it possibly the second-largest band contest in the world outside of Scotland. This year’s “Nationals” are in Invercargill, New Zealand, on March 7 and 8. Several […]

At the end of 2024, the Eastern United States Pipe Band Association embarked on a project to rate its panel of approximately 90 judges into A and B categories. The leaders of the world’s largest piping and drumming association by geography said they were responding to repeated requests from members […]

A brief conversation with Helen Urquhart, Head of Events with the National Piping Centre and manager of the Balvenie Medal, on the nomination and award process for the award for selfless and unstinting service to the piping world.

Jamie Hawke has announced his plan to step down as pipe-major of Grade 1 Canterbury Caledonian of Christchurch after the New Zealand competition season in March. Hawke has held the post since 2017, when he succeeded his father, Richard Hawke, in the role. Under the younger Hawke, the band has […]