Archive

Ian K. MacDonald enjoyed three firsts in the four Professional solo piping events at the 2025 Kincardine Scottish Festival & Highland Games in spectacular weather at Victoria Park in sight of Lake Huron.

Field Marshal Montgomery won the 2025 All-Ireland Championships against a field of three other Grade 1 bands, gaining their record twenty-eighth victory of the event.

We continue to consider the parallels of piping and drumming and a good walk spoiled . . .

Grade 1 Johnstone has started a search for a new leading-drummer after Gavin Orr announced he will resign after the 2025 World Championships. Orr had been lead-drummer since late 2022, with Pipe-Major Donald Mackay running the band. He had been a corps drummer with Grade 1 Inveraray & District for […]

This August, Scotland’s Kyle Warren will release Play, his third collection of original compositions and arrangements. The book of 50 tunes, all by Warren, follows Tunez (2010) and EAT SLEEP PIPE REPEAT (2020). A former member of Field Marshal Montgomery and the pipe-major of the then Grade 2 Hawthorn of […]

As part of R.G. Hardie & Co.’s news that they’ve remodelled and narrowed their extensive line of bagpipes, we received a video of Highland Society of London Gold Medallist and Glenfiddich light music champion Connor Sinclair playing a new set of redesigned Peter Henderson pipes. Along with the world-famous Callum […]

“The celebration brought a real sense of closure to the FMM chapter of my life.” – Richard Parkes. About 100 guests attended the invitation-only event at Dunadry Hotel and Gardens in Antrim, Northern Ireland.

Originally from Crieff, Scotland, and now living in Glasgow, John Dew has a bachelor’s degree in traditional music from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. He has been making a career as a music composer, arranger, and producer, in between playing with the Grade 1 Inveraray & District and vying for […]

R.G. Hardie & Co. of Glasgow is taking a different approach by simplifying its offerings to make choosing that much easier. Equally important, the company is enabling its worldwide network of dealers to keep in-demand Peter Henderson- and Hardie-branded pipes in stock and ready to ship to pipers eager to get their hands on their new instrument.

Stuart Easton of Palmerston North, New Zealand, closed on Frank MacKinnon’s record on 14 by winning his twelfth R.U. Brown Cup for light music. Willie Rowe of Fielding, New Zealand, won the Everest Cup Piobaireachd contest and was second in the Brown Cup to gain the overall prize.

Field Marshal Montgomery won Grade 1 against two other bands, marking the first competition for the 13-time World Champions under Pipe-Major Matt Wilson, who succeeded pipe band legend Richard Parkes last autumn.

“I have actually made the suggestion that Northern Ireland should have their own association. They can be affiliated in the same ways as we are. I think it would put them in a much stronger position to have their own association up there in Northern Ireland Pipe Band Association. What would be wrong with that?”

Glasgow’s Owain Woodman Carr, Tony Doherty of East Kilbride, Scotland, and Rye, Australia’s Sophie Stringer were the Grade 1, Grade 2, and Grade 3 overall winners at the UK’s Competition League for Amateur Solo Pipers (CLASP) in-person competition held at the National Piping Centre’s McPhater Street building.

David Wilton is the pipe-major of a Grade 1 band on a heater. Police Scotland Fife is fresh off winning the Lochore (Benarty) Highland Games, beating Peoples Ford Boghall & Bathgate Caledonia and ScottishPower, and earlier in 2024 delivered a sold-out “Dancing on the Beat” (see what they did there?) […]

North Stratton, Craig Sutherland and Robert Graham were the big winners at ScotFestBC, also known as the British Columbia Highland Games. Grade 2 was the top contested pipe band competition, North Stratton winning both events against two other entrants. Sutherland enjoyed a perfect sweep in the Open solo piping, the Piobaireachd held on Friday, and the MSR and Hornpipe & Jig on Saturday, and Graham won both Open snare drumming events.

When Terry Tully talks, you’d be wise to listen. How the legendary piper, composer, teacher and pipe-major is leading the IPBA into a new era.