Solo adjudicator and former Scots Guards piper Roger Huth on the Scottish Pipe Band Chanmpionships last weekend:
‘I had the joy of wandering among the sounds of our great competing pipe bands yesterday at the Sottish Championships and seeing not a few of our superstars in action in the Grade One arena. I found rare space on a grassy rampart overlooking the hallowed spot and at 1400 the procession of astonishing pipe bands began to take breaths away.
‘Lovely grace notation played in seemingly impossible unison with one band playing probably our most difficult 2/4 march, Willie Maclean, with easy, ‘this is our normal’, skill. Inveraray marching up to the arena meant that an hour of being spoilt by premier class tone and musicality had already passed by.
‘Stuart Liddell’s fantastic pipe band delivering their performance excited some of the crowd so much that they talked all the way through it bless them.
‘Field Marshal were the last band to perform with the best live attack and tone I have ever heard in my life and their music was just wonderful to stand there and absorb. Such a great time we are living in.’
- Stay tuned to PP for more detailed comment on the G1 performances at Dumbarton. Full results here.
St Columba’s Job
Novice B champions at the Scottish, St Columba’s School, Kilmalcolm, are looking for a new piping instructor. The post is currently filled by well-known piper Kyle Warren who will be moving on as soon as a new instructor is announced.
The official advert: St Columba’s School, Kilmacolm, invites applications from enthusiastic and committed teachers of bagpipes to work as the second piping instructor with the school’s highly popular Piping and Drumming Programme.
Applicants will require a minimum qualification of a diploma in a recognised music course or an equivalent piping qualification. The successful candidate will work closely with the Piping and Drumming Programme Manager, teaching a minimum of one and a half days per week on a self-employed basis in the Junior School and assisting with pipe band rehearsals and events.
Those interested in further information about the post should contact the Piping and Drumming Programme Manager, Mr Gordon Bruce, at GBruce@st-columbas.org
Letters of application and CVs, with the names and email addresses of two referees, should be submitted to recruitment@st-columbas.org by 4pm on Friday, 12th August 2022. Interviews will take place week commencing 15th August.
Festival of Solo Piping
Jon Gerard McGlumpha has announced that the closing date for the annual Festival of Juvenile Solo Piping, held in Ayrshire, is Friday September 23, no late entries accepted. The contest itself is on October 22 in Auchenharvie Academy, Stevenston.
Download entry form (click chevrons top right):
Re Dumbarton
Well said Roger Huth!
All Grade 1 Pipe Bands have musical qualities that deserve respect, though this is often missing from too many of the spectating connoisseurs. The bands must concentrate on giving the best, competitive performance but we in the Association also need the paying public. So can you suggest a better way to accommodate both needs
Thank you Winston. I love Dumbarton, please don’t change a thing. The atmosphere is amazing and I found it impossible to walk past some of the other Graded Pipe Bands who were on the tuning fields. I even followed a Grade 3A Band, Inverness I think it was, owning the path to their arena playing a set of 4/4 Marches, because I enjoyed listening to them so much. The whole place was buzzing with quality tone everywhere. Field Marshall leading the march off for us in the Massed Pipe Bands was extra special and unexpected (for me) and I won’t forget it. I look forward to hearing them and all the others at the Worlds in a couple of weeks or so
At the Scottish Championships in Dumbarton on Saturday, it was truly a pleasure to listen to a wide variety of marches played by our elite Grade 1 bands, including real gems such as The Stirlingshire Militia, the Braes of Badenoch, Willie MacLean and Kantara to El Arish. At long last we seem to have progressed away from the endless repetition of the same old “favourites” such as Lord Alexander Kennedy and Clan MacRae Society.