Archive
If it’s springtime in Glasgow, it can only mean one thing: the annual Uist & Barra Invitational Solo Piping Competition, the unofficial traditional kickoff to a new year of significant professional events. The 10 to compete at the March 9th contest at the National Piping Centre’s Otago Street premises and […]
We conclude our series of articles and videos from the great piobaireachd master Andrew Wright’s two-week visit to the University of California, Riverside, in May 2016 with the lecture he delivered to students and a performance of the ground and variations of “The Desperate Battle.”
In Part 1 of our discussion with Ian Whitelaw, the distinguished piper and teacher talked about his relationship with the great piobaireachd master Andrew Wright, and what led up to the 80-year-old Wright’s 14-day visit to the University of California, Riverside in May 2016. In Part 2, Whitelaw looks back […]
With a first in the MSR and a second in the Medley, Connor Sinclair of Crieff, Scotland, was the overall champion of the 2024 Ardmore Cup Invitational Solo Piping Competition at St. Declan’s Village Hall in Ardmore, Waterford, Ireland. Sinclair gained the big prize for the second straight year.
In May 2016, 80-year-old Andrew Wright travelled from his home in Dunblane, Scotland, to Riverside, California, a distance of more than 5,100 miles that took more than 24 hours to complete. The renowned master of piobaireachd, at the invitation of the school, spent two weeks teaching, discussing, and performing ceol […]
Gillian Blaney of Lower Sackville, Nova Scotia, was the big winner, taking all four events. Blaney gained an invitation to compete in the CLASP Champion of Champions competition on April 27th. Since she had already qualified because of winning the top amateur prize at last year’s Glengarry Highland Games in Maxville, Ontario, runner-up Charles-David Mitchell of Montreal gets an invitation.
March 1st will be the next attempt at a recital in the series put on by the Lewis & Harris Piping Society, with James Duncan MacKenzie and Neil Smith taking the stage in Stornoway after the January show by Highland Society of London Gold Medallist Niall Stewart had to be […]
John Ban was described as the last of the old school. He was the complete piper: he could kill the sheep, make the bag, turn the pipes, cut the reeds, compose the tune and play it.
As part of the Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association’s new eight-contest Champion of Champions League, the Royal New Zealand Pipe Bands’ Association has released details of the Oceania Solo Drumming Championship. The competition will be on June 29, 2024, at St. Andrew’s College in Christchurch and offers more southern hemisphere […]
The accomplished pipe band snare drummer Neil Sloan passed away on February 15, 2024. He was in his mid-fifties. Remembered foremost in the competing pipe band community as a popular member of Boghall & Bathgate Caledonia organization through the 1970s and ’80s, Sloan was part of the great Grade 1 […]
Dartmouth, Nova Scotia’s Alex Gandy won the 2024 Metro Cup Solo Piping Championship held at the Holiday Inn Newark Airport Hotel, gaining the prize by winning the Piobaireachd event and finishing third in the freestyle Medley competition. Gandy received a total of US$2,400 for his success, with the champion receiving an additional $1,000. It was his first time winning the event after finishing second no fewer than four times.
Peoples Ford Boghall & Bathgate Caledonia Leading Drummer Kerr McQuillan won the Intercontinental Solo Snare Drumming Championship at the Holiday Inn Newark Airport Hotel as an event adjacent to the Metro Cup Solo Piping Championships. McQuillan was first on “adjudicator preference” over runner-up Steven McWhirter of Inveraray & District.
The Grade 1 Western Australia Police Pipe Band is on the hunt for a permanent pipe-major with the term of Chris MacDonald coming to an end. The new pipe-major, which comes with a salary of between AUD$87,712 and $92,057, would join Inverness, Scotland-born and raised leading drummer Ryan Green, who […]
The Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association’s Northern Ireland branch is one of the association’s most active, representing one of the world’s most vibrant piping and drumming communities. RSPBANI has unveiled its 2024 schedule of events, comprising at least 10 pipe band contests and three solo competitions from mid-April to late […]
The second annual Jimmy McIntosh MBE Piobaireachd Workshop at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh ballooned to 48 attendees from 14 states and two Canadian provinces taking in a packed February 9-11 weekend organized by the Pittsburgh Piping Society. Three longtime pupils of the late Jimmy McIntosh, Mike Cusack, Andrew Carlisle, […]
The 2024 New Zealand Pipe Band Championships in Tamaki Makaurau Auckland, March 15-16, will enjoy a 13% increase in entries, with a total of 52 bands across all grades entered for the country’s annual marquee competition. Five bands have entered the Grade 1 contest, including Hawthorne of Melbourne, Australia, who […]