Archive
The 2023 Sun Belt Invitational Professional Solo Piping Championship went to Bruce Gandy of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, who gained the prize in an aggregate points tie with St. Andrews, Scotland’s Callum Beaumont by winning the Piobaireachd competition. It was the contest’s second year, organized by Eric Stein and supported by various sponsors.
The inaugural Sandy Jones Memorial Amateur Invitational Solo Piping Championship was won by Tom Cangelosi of Arlington, Virginia, who took both the Piobaireachd and MSR events against nine other pipers from around North America.
Steven MacDonald of nearby Jacksonville, Florida, was the winner of the first BarRoom Brawl solo piping contest as part of the annual Sun Belt Solo Piping Competition, winning US$1,000 and the coveted and OTT wrestling belt as a trophy.
The Deans Bowling Club in Livingston, Scotland, will play host to the 10th anniversary LIVI Invitational Solo Drumming Competition, with 12 of the UK’s top pipe band snare musicians vying for the trophy, all in support of Enable Scotland, a charity for those with learning disabilities and other special needs. […]
On November 11th, piping-rich nations collectively pause to think and appreciate. But all pipers and drummers should realize that we were given an extra gift because of these horrific conflicts – and remember with our music.
Editor’s note: with an aging population in most parts of the world’s more significant piping and drumming countries, pipes|drums will explore the challenges pipers and drummers face with getting older and remaining in our competition avocation with various features over the next year. We start with an opinion piece designed […]
Treasured piping teacher Domhnall Ban MacDonald, an unsung hero of the art who has taught hundreds of young pipers over more than two decades in the schools of the isles of Uist and Barra, is in the running for the Tutor of the Year prize in the 2023 Scots Trad […]
After the Scottish Piping Society of London’s solo competitions on November 4th, Angus MacPhee of Inverness and Keith Bowes Jr. of Glasgow emerged the winners of the Competing Pipers Association’s 2023 league table rankings for B-Grade and C-Grade members. The standings are compiled based on nine designated solo piping competitions […]
The 21st annual MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards are on December 2nd at the Caird Music Hall in Dundee, Scotland, and this year Highland piping again comes up in several spots among the 22 categories. Multi-instrumentalist-piper Ross Ainslie seemed ubiquitous in 2023 with many solo and ensemble projects, and […]
With a first in the Piobaireachd event and a fourth in the MSR, Liam Horne of Bristol, Virginia, was the winner of the seventeenth annual United States Junior Solo Piping Championship, part of the annual Balmoral Classic competitions run by the Balmoral School of Piping & Drumming at the University of Pittsburgh. Horne won by his higher placing in the Piobaireachd, tied with Magnus Stone, Natick, Massachusetts, who was second, and Duncan Winters, Grand Junction, Colorado, who was third.
The Midwest Pipe Band Association, under President Jim Sim, is continuing to lead with progressive measures designed to bring piping and drumming competition and performance into a more modern era. At the MWPBA’s annual general meeting on November 4th, some 65 members, present in-person and online, passed several five substantial […]
Glasgow’s Finlay Johnston was the big winner of the 2023 Scottish Piping Society of London’s annual solo competitions, taking three of the four major Saturday events, only missing the Hornpipe & Jig contest. For winning the overall, Johnston gets an invitation to the 2024 Glenfiddich Championship, where he will compete for his third title at Blair Castle in October.
Roddy MacLeod of Glasgow won the coveted Bratach Gorm for piobaireachd at the annual Piping Society of London (SPSL) solo piping competitions once again at the sumptuous Caledonian Club in the capital of England. It was MacLeod’s ninth time winning the Bratach Gorm.
Despite being a registered nonprofit serving the Pacific Northwest’s piping and drumming community, Meta – the oligarchical parent company that owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp – effectively shut down the benign organization’s properties on those “platforms” without any warning or explanation. The shutdown started on November 1st, with the BCPA’s […]
“The reason I wrote this article is that if the Ancient Martial Music dies out, the piping world will lose the best branch of the Piobaireachd, and to stop this from happening, I think that this branch of the music should go into the pipe bands. There are plenty of people among the bands who are clever, daring, and highly imaginative, and if they adopt this technique, it could be a refreshing change that might enhance their performance.”
The Pipers & Pipe Band Society has regraded none of its member bands for the 2024 competition season, and only one solo piper was moved to the Professional class. The organization’s Music Committee proposed that Kayleigh Johnstone of Aurora, Ontario, be elevated to Professional in both Piobaireachd and Light Music. […]