One of the highlights at tomorrow’s Piobaireachd Society Conference will be a tune from Duncan MacGillivray. Duncan will be playing on John Macdonald, Inverness’s bagpipe (as above).
It will help illustrate my talk on John Shone’s new book on Macdonald entitled ‘Life, Times and Music’. (Available this weekend on the PS webshop.)
Duncan got the pipes from his father Donald. Donald was a student of Macdonald’s and the maestro gifted him the pipes. Donald won the Gold Medal playing Lament for Donald Duaghal MacKay at Inverness in 1948. Almost fifty years later, 1997, Duncan got his Inverness GM with Menzies Salute – playing J Mcd’s pipes.
The Conference is in the Royal George Hotel, Perth, from 9am and is open to all. Day visitors pay £20 and this includes lunch, tea and coffee and four excellent papers: the John Macdonald book, ‘Memorising Piobaireachd’ (Dr Peter McCalister), ‘Gems from the PS Archive’ (Dr Jack Taylor) and ‘Skye: Language, Heritage and the Silver Chanter’ (Dr J Decker Forrest).
Uist & Barra
Mentioning the U&B last week, I hear that Michael Steele has been appointed the new Piping Convenor, taking over from John Angus Smith. Michael is a professional presenter of the BBC’s piping programmes and I am sure he will bring the same level of expertise to running this important competition.
One improvement that could be made would be the return of the historic U&B trophies to Glasgow. At the moment they are held somewhere up in the islands and never seen by man nor beast. I understand insurance costs may be the problem. The answer is simple: don’t insure them.
They could be held by the Secretary and presented to the winners each year, photographs taken and returned immediately to the Secretary for safe keeping. Without the trophies it is very difficult to illustrate properly any report on the competition.
Take a look at the above photograph of the winners at the U&B in 2018, Craig Sutherland, Niall Stewart and Iain Speirs. Wouldn’t look so good without the silverware would it?
Tribute Band
Grateful to Brian Hasson and Ken Stewart in Northern Ireland for forwarding this video of the ’70s Tribute Band at last year’s All Ireland Pipe Band Championships at the Newbridge House Demesne, Co. Dublin. The band’s playing the 1973 Shotts and Dykehead medley:
Pipers were P/M David Caldwell, Graham Stirling, Nigel Davison, Gary Watterson, Ben Greeves, David MacLean, Jamie Walker, Cliff Thornbury, Norman MacDonald, Sonya Rooney, Jake Hamill, Paul Russell, Peter Donan, Neil Nicholson, Mark Adair, Colin Moffatt, Clive Monaghan, Keith Davison, Margaret Houlihan, Ken Stewart.
Snare: John Scullion, Steve Roy, Taylor Roy, Mark Armstrong, Earl Glasgow, Geoff Wilson; Bass & Tenor: David McCready, Jenna Hamilton, Emily Waddell, Amy Megaw.
Well done everyone for a super performance. Have a listen. It will bring a nostalgic lump to the throat of all pipe banders of a certain age.
Scottish Pipers‘ Association
President Logan Tannock: Entries for the SPA Professional Competition will close tomorrow, Saturday 29th March at 16.00hrs. This will allow us to distribute the tune lists to judges in advance of the competition to assist with the smooth running on the day.
We are well subscribed with the Open MSR at capacity and a reserve list available for anyone who wishes to go on it. (Last year this worked very well and at least four people were able to play from the reserve list, most of them only finding out on the day.)
At present we have one or two spaces left for the B Piobaireachd, six or seven for the C Piobaireachd and MSR, and there is still space in the Open Piobaireachd and the Former Winners MSR. The competition is on April 12 at the Piping Centre in McPhater Street, Glasgow. Entries here.
