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The 64th annual Glengarry Highland Games will again host the North American Pipe Band Championships, but with a lesser entry than past year, particularly in Grade 1 . . .

There¡¯s nothing like winning a major to take a band into the World Championships on a buoyant note, and the timing for Boghall & Bathgate Caledonia taking the 2012 European title could not have been better . . .

Ed Bush of Prescott, Ontario, enjoyed a rare double victory by winning the Piobaireachd Society (Canada) Gold Medal and the Bar to the Medal on the same day in the annual contest held at the United Church in downtown Maxville, Ontario. The last time that the feat was achieved was in 1993 when Greg Wilson of New Zealand did it on his way to Scotland. Bush returned to solo competition in 2012 after more than 15 years away from the boards. Earlier in the year he won the piobaireachd event at the Kincardine Scottish Festival. The Bar to the Medal is reserved for previous winners of the Gold Medal, which can only be won once . . .

Peel Police won the 2012 North American Pipe Band Championship here today in warm, sunny weather at a packed Glengarry Highland Games. Temperatures soared to over 35 Celsius at a scorched park where shade was at a premium. The tightly contested Grade 2 event was won by New York Metro, wrecking Ottawa Police’s string of consecutive firsts in Ontario this year. In the solo piping, Ian K. MacDonald took Piper of the Day honours, while Callum Harper was the Amateur Piper of Day.

While the bands were off doing their thing, a sizable group of solo pipers were competing for good prize money at the annual North Berwick Highland Games in weather that was foggy but warm . . .

The annual Aboyne Highland Games enjoyed a lovely sunny day, where Fiona Manson had the best overall success, winning the Piobaireachd event and gathering high prizes in the light music . . .

Thomas Lorenzen of Grenzach-Wyhlen, Germany, and Susan Lunn of Kingston, Ontario, are the two winners of a pair of tickets each to the Boghall & Bathgate Caledonia Pipe Band’s “Forte” concert at the Royal Glasgow Concert Hall on Wednesday, August 8th.

The last Grade 1 band contest in Scotland before the World Championships was at North Berwick, where a mostly non-Scottish entry competed. Ultimately Oran Mor of New York and Ontario’s 78th Fraser Highlanders won the MSR and Medley, respectively, each with enjoying three of four first placings and the latter winning drumming in both events. The St. Thomas Episcopal School Alumni Pipe Band of Houston played up from Grade 2 in the Grade Medley and took a first and second in piping . . .

After discovering days later that they played without the minimum number of pipers at the 2012 European Pipe Band Championships, the Killeen Pipe Band of Armaugh, Northern Ireland, voluntarily returned the trophy and prize-money to the Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association. The band reportedly had the minimum eight pipers on the day, but played with seven, without . . .

Decker Forest and John-Angus Smith scooped up the first prizes at the annual Mallaig & Morar Highland Games in Scotland’s West Highlands, and Forest took in the overall trophy. Weather was cloudy with intermittent showers . . .

The International Piping in the Park Solo Competition, inspired in part by a tongue-in-cheek 2006 Blogpipe post, was won by Mike Fitzhenry, originally from Canada, who donned a large moose hat to reflect his nationality while delivering a crowd-pleasing 20-minute set . . .

After months of seemingly endless dreariness and rain, the week of Piping Live! would appear to be taking an opposite turn, giving Scotland a much-deserved reprieve with brilliant blue skies and intense sunshine for most of Day 1 and all of Day 2. It seemed like most of the “overseas” interlopers inhabited one or two planes from North America, landing in Glasgow on the Tuesday, powering through the jet-lag by taking in the sounds of sights of the world’s most important (read: only) festival of piping. The Monday kicked things off with such acts . . .

Inveraray & District rose to the top to win the International Quartet Piping Competition at Piping Live! 2012, beating seven others in the MSR and Medley combined contest. The event was judged by a secret panel of adjudicators, hand-picked by the organizers. The judges . . .

Decker Forrest of Skye won the Dunvegan Medal for piobaireachd at the Skye Gathering, and Innes Smith won the Col Jock MacDonald Clasp for former winners of the event. Smith played ” Lament for Donald Duaghal MacKay.” Both competitions highlight the music by or strongly connected with the MacCrimmon family dynasty of pipers from Skye. Both receive invitations to the 2013 Silver Chanter competition at Dunvegan Castle . . .

Jim Kilpatrick is its highest profile member, but the Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association has suspended the 16-time World Solo Drumming Champion and myriad-times drum corps champion-winning Leading Drummer of the Grade 1 House of Edgar-Shotts & Dykehead Pipe Band for three months for a single comment he made on Facebook. Little did Kilpatrick know that when he wrote in a comments thread that the drumming result from the 2012 British Pipe Band Championship at Annan, Scotland, on June 30th, was “one of the most predictable shaftings on the calendar,” that it would result in the penalty that was handed down by the . . .

The Wednesday of World’s Week is the usually the last day of relaxation and pure freedom before the reality of Saturday sets in for competitors playing at the Big One on the Green, and the bright weather made the day extra special, especially for the free outdoors events, which drew more large crowds . . .