Archive
Roybridge, Scotland’s Sandy Cameron was the aggregate winner across the top Senior events at the popular annual Blairgowrie & Rattray Highland Games, where a total of 60 pipers competed in the various events.
Winning three firsts and two seconds in the five events, Stuart Liddell of Inveraray, Scotland, gained the Chatsworth Champion Piper trophy at the annual Chatsworth Country Fair, held on the sprawling manicured grounds of Chatsworth House.
Braemar, Scotland – August 5, 2026 – The annual Braemar Gathering was held in the rolling Royal Deeside landscape in good weather, and it was Ben McClamrock of Washington, DC, who won the traditional Piobaireachd Gold Medal, while Zephan Knichel, Lynnwood, Washington, gained the overall trophy by winning both light […]
Results from the second and final day of competitions at Eden Court Theatre in Inverness
Results from the world’s top non-invitational solo piping competition
The 2026 Pipe-Major Alasdair Gillies Memorial Challenge Recital was another spectacular night of incredible musical creativity and technical brilliance by five of the world’s greatest Highland pipers. Callum Beaumont, Alasdair Henderson, Finlay Johnston, Angus D. MacColl and Connor Sinclair each performed for 15-20 minutes, every second of which had the packed Strathclyde Suite at […]
Oswald “Ozzie” Reid, whose decades as a pipe-major, teacher, judge, and administrator made him one of the more influential figures in the development of piping and pipe bands in the western United States, has died at age 90. Born in Northern Ireland in 1936, Reid immigrated to the United States […]
The Raasay Restitution Competition at the Raasay House Hotel, Isle of Raasay, Scotland, on September 5th is one of the world’s most creative events for pipers, as 12 pipers will be assessed not simply on their technical and expressive ability playing traditional pipe tunes, but on their feel for step-dance […]
Inverness is set for two packed days of top-flight solo piping as the 2026 Northern Meeting brings the world’s leading players together for the most prestigious non-invitational gathering on the competition calendar. Entries and judges are set, with the action running Thursday, September 3rd, and Friday, September 4th, all events […]
Wilson Young, the legendary former Red Hackle leading drummer, World Solo Drumming Champion and highly influential adjudicator and educator, died in his nineties on August 24, 2026.
Kyle Shead of Glasgow won the Competing Pipers’ Association’s Bronze Medal for Piobaireachd, held at the National Piping Centre’s Otago Street branch.
William Lyons died following a short illness on August 28, 2026. Born on May 27, 1940, he learned to play the bagpipes as a boy with the Corbet Pipe Band, just outside Banbridge in County Down, Northern Ireland. He was taught in the post-war years in this quiet part of Ireland before enlisting in the British Army as an Infantry Soldier/Piper in the Irish Guards in 1957.
Cameron Bonar of Surrey British Columbia, won the overall trophy on Piobaireachd preference after a tie with Zephan Knichel of Lynwood, Washington, in varied results at the annual Birnam Highland Games, a popular competition for non-Scottish pipers.
Craig Sutherland, Vancouver, won the 2026 Captain John A. MacLellan MBE Memorial Medal at another packed annual black-tie Dinner & Recital Competition at the Caledonian Hotel in Edinburgh, awarded the prize by sole judge Ian Duncan for a performance of “For My Lass, Fair, Pretty and Highland.”
pipes|drums’ intrepid photographer Alister Sinclair was on the prowl on the second day of the Argyllshire Gathering through the town of Oban and at Mossfield Park, the traditional venue for the Thursday events. We’re pleased to present to you a selection of his exclusive images.
Results from the second day of competitions, all light music events held outdoors at a sunny and warm Mossfield Park