Results

We’re asking one important question each day of Piping Live! 2026. Here are responses from Tuesday, August 11th, on whether it’s time for the Grade 1 and Grade 2 MSR events to be replaced with something else (including retaining the MSR in a different way).

The second heat of Piping Live!’s 2026 Pipe Idol competition was won by 16-year-old Lachlan Rennie, chosen by an unidentified group of three judges to go through to the four-piper Grand Final on Thursday, August 13th.

The Competition League for Adult Solo Pipers (CLASP) also seized the opportunity that Piping Live! and Worlds Week presented, with hundreds of overseas pipers in town to potentially participate in the “World Solo Amateur Piping Competition” at the Otago Street premises of the National Piping Centre.

The RSPBA’s Glasgow & West of Scotland Branch took advantage of the influx of pipe bands in Scotland for the World Championships by holding the British Solo Drumming Championship at the National Piping Centre’s Otago Street premises, where Australia’s Steven Shedden, leading-drummer of Grade 1 Hawthorn, was victorious.

The first heat of Piping Live!’s 2026 Pipe Idol competition was won by Liam Nicolson of Melbourne, Australia, chosen by an unidentified group of three judges to go through to the four-piper Grand Final on Thursday, August 13th.

The 2026 Piping Live! Festival kicked off with the Masters Solo Piping Competition at the National Piping Centre, and it was Alasdair Henderson who won the overall title and thus gained an invitation to the 2026 Glenfiddich Championships in October.

The Perth Highland Games are the final pipe band competition before the World Championships, so they attracted a reasonably good entry from bands not from Scotland, seizing the opportunity to air some of their competition material for RSPBA judges and an appreciative crowd.

Aaron Ingram was the overall winner of the Carloway Show & Highland Games Piping Championship at the Carloway Showground against five other local competitors. Ingram received the Finlay MacNeil Cup for the achievement

2025 Argyllshire Gathering Gold Medallist Steven Leask of East Kilbride, Scotland, won the 2026 Silver Chanter for Piobaireachd, playing “Lament for MacLeod of Colbeck” for lone judge Niall Matheson at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig Gaelic College.

illie McCallum of Bearsden, Scotland, enjoyed a spectacular two days at the annual Skye Gathering, with two light music firsts and a third in the Clasp on the first day and a first and second on day two, to secure the overall trophy and the special overall light music trophy.