Archive
Bobby Allen of Glasgow secured the fourth and last spot in the grand final of the 2024 Pipe Idol competition by winning Heat 4 at the National Piping Centre’s auditorium.
“I’m sincerely telling it like it is, as best as I can, beginning my personal highlights with one word: marvelous.” Snare drummer Rita DeNobriga reviews the big Pre-World’s Concert by Peoples Ford Boghall & Bathgate Caledonia. She liked it. A lot.
Checking in on a number of things in and around the festival
For the first time a mid-week event at Piping Live!, the 2024 Gordon Duncan Memorial Solo Piping Competition was won by Matt MacIsaac of Aurora, Ontario, Canada.
Reece Doherty of Donegal, Ireland, won the third heat to determine one of four places in the August 15th Grand Final of the 2024 Pipe Idol competition for young players.
Photographer Alister Sinclair was on the scene on the second day of the festival
Iain MacDonald, Regina, reports on a few events that caught his eye and ear on the Tuesday of Piping Live! 2024
The Strathclyde Suite at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall was packed with enthusiasts, each paying £18.50 (about $33), heard and saw Scotland’s Inveraray & District win the annual International Quartet Competition for Grade 1 bands. It was the sixth time that Inveraray won the event and the first since 2017.
Eala McElhinney of Glasgow won Heat 2 of the four-round qualifying stages of the 2024 Pipe Idol competition for young players.
Our intrepid photographer, Alister Sinclair, captures images from the world’s biggest week of piping, drumming and craic, starting with the first full weekday of events.
Iain MacDonald of Regina reports on a few standout events on the first weekday of the festival
Alan Bevan of Abbotsford, British Columbia, was the overall winner of the 2024 Masters Solo Piping Competition and thus gained one of 10 spots at the 2024 Glenfiddich Championships in October. Bevan got the job done with two thirds in the two-event contest.
Brendon Eade of Waikato became the first New Zealander to win the MacCrimmon Trophy at the Inter-Celtic Music Festival, a contest that requires Highland pipers to compete in Scottish, Irish and Breton musical genres in three separate events. Liam Kernaghan of Auckland, New Zealand, was second overall as well.
Peoples Ford Boghall & Bathgate Caledonia’s Leading-Drummer Kerr McQuillan was the winner of the British Adult Solo Drumming Championship, the Sixth in the series of events to determine competitors in the semi-final at the World Solo Pipe Band Snare Drumming Championships on October 19th in Glasgow. Including the World Solos, points accrued in the eight events go towards determining the RSPBA’s new Adult World Solo Snare Drumming Champion of Champion title.
MacKenzie Fraser of Glasgow won the first heat in the 2024 Pipe Idol competition at this year’s Piping Live! Glasgow International Festival of Piping. The heat was held at the festival’s Street Café and judged by a group of unidentified pipers in the audience. They were the ones looking very serious.
As a service to the many pipe band enthusiasts, fanboys and fangirls in and around Glasgow for the Piping Live! festival and World Pipe Band Championships, we’re pleased to publish the 2024 edition of our pipes|drums Guide to World’s Week Grade 1 Band Practices. Fourteen are entered in the top […]