Archive
If the days are to have themes, then today started smartly with “Learn @ Live! with Louise Mulcahy.” Mulcahy is a masterful uilleann piper, flute player, and brilliant researcher and folklorist. Her primary interest is the story of women in uilleann piping, some of which has been made available online and through talks and exhibitions.
The Field Marshal Montgomery foursome won the 2025 International Quartet Competition held at the Strathclyde Suite of the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, part of the Piping Live! festival.
Bedfordview, Johannesburg – July 26, 2025 – Trepidation. Unseasonal winter rain the night before the South African Pipe Band Championships had many concerned about what the conditions would be like come morning at St. Benedict’s College in Bedfordview, where the event would take place for the first time in its history. […]
Almost lost among the hubbub of Piping Live! were the British Solo Drumming Championships won by Inveraray & District’s Steven McWhirter with two firsts from the two judges.
pipes|drums is pleased to bring our followers daily Piping Live! images by our intrepid photographer, Alister Sinclair. Each day, Alister will share some of his favourite shots from the day from the world’s biggest festival of piping, and he’ll be on the scene at Shotts & Dykehead’s SOLAS concert and […]
Iain MacDonald (Regina) reports from the Glasgow International Festival of Piping Bob Dylan‘s iconic anthem to changing times, influenced by his love of traditional Irish and Scottish ballads, could be an appropriate theme for this year’s Piping Live! Festival, which began fully today at the National Piping Centre. The NPC […]
Alan Bevan of Abbotsford, British Columbia, won the overall trophy at the 2025 Masters Competition, the biggest solo piping contest of the 2025 Piping Live! Glasgow International Festival of Piping. Ten different prize-winners were awarded for the 10 different placings in the two events, so Bevan won the overall by winning the Piobaireachd event.
To get out in front of the annual post-World’s effort by many bands to find new leaders, the Grade 2 City of Edinburgh is already looking for its next leading-drummer after incumbent Simon Grant will step down amicably after the World Championships on August 16th. Grant chalked up his decision […]
Inveraray & District won the 2025 European Championship at South Inch Park, the third major competition of the Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association’s four-championship season. Ulster Scottish of Philadelphia won Grade 2 and featured two other North American bands, North Stratton of Edmonton, Canada, and the Los Angeles Scots in the prize list.
Artificial intelligence technology is affecting virtually every element of life, and, whether we ask for it or not, piping and drumming will not be excluded. Matt Fraser, Colin Johnstone and Brodie Watson-Massey discuss potential uses, benefits and implications of AI in the ultra-traditional art.
Brodie Watson-Massey is just starting his competitive piping trek, but even at the age of only 22, he’s amassed a collection of prizes that would be the envy most much older solo pipers. Originally from Edinburgh and now living in Glasgow, Watson-Massey’s first piping lessons were at George Heriot’s School, […]
Sandy Cameron won the Colonel Jock MacDonald Clasp for winners of the Dunvegan Medal at the Skye Gathering, and Alistair Brown won this year’s Dunvegan Medal. Steven Leask, Brodie Watson-Massey and Angus MacPhee also enjoyed top-drawer results.
We started the exclusive series of Castle Recordings made by Captain John A. MacLellan MBE in the 1960s in March 2024, and 151 tunes and 18 installments later, it’s fitting to wrap the series with a brief recorded conversation with Colin MacLellan. Colin came to us with the idea of […]
In his day, Captain John A. MacLellan MBE attended not a few black-tie celebration dinners in Edinburgh and Glasgow where some of history’s greatest pipers – including himself – would perform. Since 2011, the Captain John A. MacLellan MBE Memorial Dinner & Recital Competition has become probably the premier event […]
Stuart Liddell of Inveraray, Scotland, was the winner of the 2025 MacCrimmon Trophy at the 54th annual Festival Interceltique de Lorient, the annual solo piping competition that combines Breton, Irish and Scottish music events. Each competitor was invited to the event by winning various qualifying events worldwide.
Callum Beaumont won the overall trophy in the Senior solo piping at the annual Aboyne Highland Games in Scotland’s scenic Royal Deeside region, winning the Piobaireachd and Strathspey & Reel. Willie McCallum also had a fine day, winning the March and enjoying a second in both the Piobaireachd and Hornpipe & Jig. Seventeen competed.