Archive

Turikina is a small farming settlement approximately two hours north of Wellington with a population of around 250. It has been holding an annual Highland games since 1864 and remains a favourite on the New Zealand solo piping calendar as one of the few traditional outdoor games. This year’s event was held in brilliant sunshine with large crowds and good fields in all of the piping grades. Results of the Open solo piping were mixed, with a different winner of each event . . .

Great Britain’s Army School of Bagpipe Music & Highland Drumming hopes to raise enough funds to create a memorial for military pipers . . .

The National Piping Centre is organizing the first “Metro Express” series of workshops in New Jersey in mid-February, and has now added amateur solo competitions for Grade 2, 3 and 4 pipers, running . . .

Eighteen-year-old Daniel Parsons was announced the new leading-drummer of the Grade 1 Oran Mor Pipe Band in October, but only two months later has . . .

2012 European and Cowal champions, and one of the most consistently successful top-grade pipe bands in history, Boghall & Bathgate Caledonia of Bathgate, Scotland, has confirmed . . .

Tickets for the often sold-out event go on sale on Friday, December 7th, via the concert hall’s online and in-person box office. “We are delighted to be asked by the Glasgow Skye . . .

The Highland piping innovator Colin Winstanley of St. Annes-on-Sea, England, passed away suddenly on December 8, 2012, of a suspected heart attack. He was 70 years old.  While his creations were many, Winstanley was best known as the creator of the Universal Blowpipe, a clever ball-and-socket solution for pipers who […]

Our second installment of videos from the 2012 Pipes + Drums Recital at the 2012 Piping Live! Glasgow Festival of Piping features Pipe-Major Ross Walker and Leading-Drummer Gordon Brown of the Grade 1 Boghall & Bathgate Caledonia Pipe Band of Bathgate, Scotland. The recital, free to all who wanted to listen, was put on once again by the nonprofit pipes|drums, with an aim to feature several of the world’s top pipe band leaders to showcase the styles that they bring to their bands. Walker and Brown kicked off the 2012 event, requesting . . .

Palmerston North Square, four acres of park, in the centre of Palmerston North, was the scene for the annual Jenny Mair Highland Square Day Championship, and Canterbury Caledonian of Christchurch won first overall Square Day Championship, taking both Grade 1 events and the overall drumming prize, concluding a 2012 that included Canterbury winning their first ever New Zealand National Championship title earlier in the year. The Square Day contests were started in 1980 and are held . . .

The Pipers & Pipe Band Society of Ontario, the only large association to allow pipe band judges to consult with each other following events, is surveying its members on their opinion . . .

Another copyright issue is hitting the Highland piping world, as Ayrshire Bagpipes of Troon, Scotland, have been asked by the makers of Qwik Tune guitar tuners to change the name of its recently released ?39 Kwiktune Chanter Stock . . .

A concert by the Canadian Forces Pipes & Drums staged in Edmonton in November has raised more than $2,000 for “Soldier On,” a charity . . .

As the world’s pipers and drummers take a collective break, pipes|drums Magazine wishes all of our readers a merry Christmas. It’s been another great year for us, and we thank you for keenly following us throughout 2012. We counted . . .

It seems as though every Tom and Dick have some kind of year-end awards, so why not Harry? By no means meant to be a complete, comprehensive, or in any way serious attempt to write the history of the past year, our Harry Tung of Trailing Drones fame still would like to make his wee contribution to marking the passage of time and gas in the appropriate way. And the 2012 Raspberries go to . . .

Once again we bring pipers and drummers highlight videos to keep the fires burning over the long off-season in the northern hemisphere, and invigorating practice in the hot summer in the antipodes. We start the series with Leading-Drummer Jake J?rgensen and Pipe-Major Neil Hall of the Grade 1 Lothian & Borders Police Pipe Band, who performed at the pipes|drums-sponsored Pipes+Drums Recital at the 2012 Piping Live! Glasgow International . . .

pipetunes.ca presents . . . Tune of the Month: “Loch Carron” – Master piper Jim McGillivray considers D.C, Mather’s famous competition reel and makes a fascinating discovery in this subscribers-only feature, which includes a sound files of Jim playing various versions of the tune and published scores of the composition ¨C one a discovery from the 1800s that would have better informed the late Seumas MacNeill.