Results

Alex Pavlovic of Houston was the overall winner of the 2025 Nicol-Brown Amateur Invitational Piping Competition against a field of nine other top amateur solo pipers from North America, held at Saint Mark Presbyterian Church. Pavlovic won the aggregate with firsts in the Piobaireachd and MSR events.

Callum Beaumont of Guardbridge, Scotland, won the biggest prize at the twelfth annual Captain John A. MacLellan MBE Memorial Solo Piping Competition for best aggregate results across the Premier Grade events. In addition to excellent prize money, he received the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo Castle Trophy. Beaumont won on Piobaireachd preference in a tie with Sarah Muir of Glasgow.

On a Piobaireachd preference, Seumas Eade of Waikato, New Zealand, was awarded the 2025 Young Piper of the Year trophy at the annual event held at the Nelson Centre of Musical Arts against 17 other contestants in the Under-21 category.

Kris Coyle of Ballyclare, Northern Ireland, won the 2025 Northern Ireland Piper of the Year Championship, winning two second prizes and securing the award at the Adair Arms Hotel.

Thirty-five years after the last time he won it, Colin MacLellan returned to Ottawa to win his fifth Glengarry Cup, an event organized by the Ottawa Branch of the Pipers & Pipe Band Society of Ontario. To win the overall trophy, MacLellan won the Piobaireachd and was third in the MSR.

The tenth anniversary annual Kuala Lumpur Highland Games were held at the Bukit Kiara Equestrian & Country Resort with a record number of solo piping and drumming competitors.

The second and final day of the 2025 Northern Meeting saw Stuart Liddell of Inveraray, Scotland, win his fourth Clasp, reserved for winners of at least one of the Highland Society Gold Medals at Inverness or Oban. He went on to win the Premier/A-Grade Hornpipe & Jig event. Sarah Muir of Glasgow won the A-Grade MSR, catapulting her into the Silver Star Former Winners’ MSR competition for the rest of her piping days.

Brodie Watson-Massey of Edinburgh added his name to the history books by winning the Highland Society of London’s Gold Medal at the 2025 Northern Meeting, the world’s longest-running and most important non-invitational solo piping competition. It was Watson-Massey’s first time playing in the event after winning the 2024 Silver Medal for Piobaireachd at the same venue. Apart from Steven Leask, who won the Argyllshire Gathering Gold Medal, the Inverness prize list featured different pipers.

Winning both light Open music events, Ben Duncan of Edinburgh won the aggregate trophy in the senior events at the 2025 Blairgowrie & Rattray Highland Games, which featured the usual large entry of solo pipers for a final run through of tunes before the Northern Meeting at Inverness.

Cool but dry conditions prevailed at the Royal Braemar Gathering, where 17-year-old Cameron Bonar of Surrey, British Columbia, was the overall winner in the senior solo piping events, taking two seconds and a third against a strong field.