Snow falls on cedars here on the North German plain as the 2024 Winter School draws to a close. It was a rewarding week of long days teaching and long evenings round the hostel campfire.
Pictured above is one of the 60+ piping students, 16-year-Niklas Helmke. He was placed second in the Under 18 Piobaireachd at Inverness this year and will be back again in 2025. This lad tunes accurately, has a retentive memory and very clean hands. One to watch I would say.
Piping continues to gather strength in Germany thanks largely to the amount of teaching that goes on here, with the Northern Winter School playing its part.
Caritas Banner
Ben Duncan, Assistant Pipe Major at George Watson’s College: With 55 young pipers now entered and 29 of them playing in the main ‘Caritas Banner’ event (submit two tunes), it is certain to be a great day of classical pipe music. The event is held in the George Watson’s College Music School which is situated to the rear and left of the main Senior School building (see map). Parking is available on site.
Doors open at 8am and the Caritas Banner 18 & Under event starts at 0830 in the main auditorium. The two 14 & Under events will commence at 9.30. We welcome all spectators and enthusiasts; entry is free and there will be tea and coffee available for a small donation. Even if you’re in town and fancy dropping in to hear a tune or two, I’m sure the pipers will really appreciate your support.
The event is kindly sponsored by The Piobaireachd Society and Kintail Bagpipes who have provided a beautiful silver practice chanter for the first prize winner. We look forward to seeing everyone on Sunday!
Correspondence
George R. Stewart: Sets of silver and ivory pipes were unstamped prior to 1889. The high quality nickel silver content was strong and engraved beautifully. I was told as a boy that Lawrie was a flute maker originally and a wood turner with Hendersons. At first Lawrie made the bores of his pipes practically same as Henderson’s but fashioned the instruments slimmer to show the difference. One advantage of this was that the pipes were not too weighty. Later he employed top pipers [such as ‘big’ Donald MacLean] for promotional aspects.
Jackie Gately on her piping ancestor: John ‘the Piper’ MacGillivray was my great-great-great-grandfather. It is so wonderful to see his portrait and mention on Piping Press. Thank you! From what I understand, after Mr MacDonald’s death, John the Piper joined the rest of his siblings and parents in Maryvale, Nova Scotia, and a homestead was built at Highfield. Recently the land was topped with a wind farm, but not before I could take a ride up with my dad in the early 1990s to see the remains of the foundations. I could almost hear the bagpipes of those hearty Scottish settlers! Incidentally, I have a painting of John’s son, Jamie, who was one of the Queen’s Guards in London and died young, some say from poisoning. His portrait sits proudly over the mantle and my son is his namesake. I’m always searching for bits of the past; your article was a great find!
Sound of the Somme
We are reaching out as we are currently working on a WWI short film about the true story of a 20-year-old soldier who went to battle without a weapon but with his bagpipes instead, write the producers. When all morale was lost, he risked his life to bring a glimmer of hope amidst the horrors of the First World War.
We are in the last stretch of production at the moment and thought our project might interest you. In the last couple of days we’ve shared a lot of set images and videos on social media, but we recently also launched a crowdfunding campaign to finish the film. If you are interested in supporting the project, we give you the chance to watch our film when it releases, have your name in the end credits, but we also have special rewards for pipe bands, etc. Our Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign can be found here: http://kck.st/3Y5EFIE
