PP Ed’s Blog: Erwan’s Funeral, Solo Contests etc

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Huge turnout at Erwan Ropars’ funeral on Tues as the poignant video shows. Patrick Molard reports: ‘Hello Rob , here is a link where you can see a video of Erwan’s funeral. Thousands of people attended, and as you can see there were a lot of bagad players, not only Bagad Kemper, but also from various parts of Brittany: Lorient, Saint-Malo, Auray, Locoal, etc… It is not only a page, but a big chapter of Breton music history which has been turned last Tuesday, a giant has gone. Kenavo Erwan!’

Crowd and pipers at Erwan's funeral
Crowd and pipers at Erwan’s funeral
Solo piping adjudicator John Don MacKenzie has sent this: ‘I’ve put some of my tunes onto a Google site, if you have the inclination or an opportunity then please have a look , you can let me know if you find anything you like , and you can pass it on to anyone you may think would be interested.’  Keep those creative juices flowing JD.

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A word to all contest promoters: there’s a page on the pipingress.com site for entry forms and any other info regarding your event. Insertions are free of charge so please send in your information for the coming season. Pipingpress.com is the best way to disseminate your information with thousands of readers every week – even during the close season. (This week 6,907 Mon – Thurs alone. As golfer Gary Player said  – you’re not boasting if it’s fact). Please remember to forward your results and pictures too.

Still on the competition front the National Piping Centre Junior Piping Competition will be held on Saturday February 21st 2015. Closing date for entries is Friday 6th February, 2015. Check it out here.
Inverness Music Festival entries closed on November 20th and those competing need to get their tunes to the secretary by Jan 20th. The piping is on Feb 21.
Tomorrow sees the Vale of Atholl Junior Piping and Drumming contest in Pitlochry High School. Please go along and support them if you can. Everything kicks off at 9.30 and you can get further info from Gillie McNab. Check out the band’s website here.
Down in South Africa, the SPSW amateur contest takes place on January 31 at The View in Jo’burg. Closing date for entries is Jan 26. Email the Secretary Nicholas Taitz for details.

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Still in the Vale, Ian Duncan has sold the beautiful set of pipes advertised in our Classified Ads section this week. Ian writes: ‘Phenomenal interest in these pipes Rab and it continues. Perhaps worth mentioning that they were sold to the first person to note interest. Good to know that they will be heard round the Games.’
Not surprised Ian; they are a beautiful looking instrument and good news that they have gone to someone playing at a high level. Here’s a detail from one of the drone slides:Jock's-pipes-Slide

Queensland Highland Pipers Society have a new editor for their newsletter, Lachlan McPhee, the newest member of their committee. Thanks to Alex McConnell for doing such a great job over the years, keeping us all informed of the Society’s work for piping – and good luck to Lachlan.

Jimmy McIntosh’s piobaireachd book continues to sell well I hear and he has started to add sound files to his website – a great help in illustrating the points he makes in the book I’m sure. I’ll have a review of it here in due course.

The organisers of the South Florida Pipe and Drum Academy have forwarded a few pix of the excellent facility they have lined up in Fort Lauderdale. Here’s one:image1[wds id=”3″]

I’ve put the ppresshop into better order so it should be easier for customers to use.