All eyes on Glasgow tomorrow for the Andante sponsored World Solo Drumming. 150 sides and 50 tenors all vying for the top awards in their grades. Everything kicks off at 9am in Glasgow Caledonian University with the Adult Hornpipe & Jig final at 3.15pm and the Adult MSR final at 4.30pm. Judges for the former are Gordon Parkes, Sandy Steele and Joe Noble. MSR judges are Ciaran Mordaunt, David Brown and James Baxter. Add in the crowd and supporters, and the RSPBA are expecting 1,000 people in the main auditorium for what is always an exciting day for the percussionists, with Steven McWhirter of Inveraray defending his World Adult title. I’ll be there listening to the pipe accompaniments and well done to Nigel Hodgen, owner of Andante, for again sponsoring the big day.
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The tunes in our Gold Medal lists is growing with Jack Taylor this week confirming his winning tune at Inverness as Lament for the Children. A great tune to get the Medal with.
Jack tells me that Seton Gordon’s report in the London Times ran along the lines of ‘Donald MacPherson gets his 8th Clasp with the Lament for the Children and an unknown piper wins the Gold Medal with the same tune.’
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Best wishes to Ian K MacDonald of Ontario after his recent illness. I am sure Ian will be up and about in no time and back next year challenging for the Gold Medal again. He was second at Oban this year remember.
Learning piobaireachd? Then make sure you get off to a good start. Check out the ppresshop for tuition recordings of complete tunes all suitable for beginners:
Apropos the new list of World Championship winning pipe bands, Bob Shepherd tells me that P/M Chris Sutherland of the first winners Bowhill Colliery, lived in the same street as him in the Fiife town. Chris won it in 1947 and thirty years later Bob was able to parade past his door with the trophy once more back in the Kingdom. Bob Shepherd’s achievement deserves some extra sort of recognition given that he trained many of the pipers himself. Here he is in action 40 years ago in Ballingry School:
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Still with the bands, I hear that Sid Moore has left Great Glasgow Police and will be starring next year with St Laurence O’Toole; also heard that Kenny MacLeod, recently P/M of Glasgow Skye , will be playing with Greater Glasgow where he joins his business partner Stewart McCallum.
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In need of a good piping night out? Well you could do worse than getting yourself along to the ceilidh night being organised tomorrow evening by the City of Edinburgh Pipe Band. Here’s the poster again:
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Brett Tidswell has an interview with Richard Parkes in his latest online magazine. It tailors nicely with the one in the recent edition of Pipe Band magazine.
Will be sitting on needles all day for results, hope they’ll get into the 21st. Century and start streaming at least the Final competitions