The 34th annual amateur Piobaireachd Society competition for the Archie Kenneth Quaich will take place on Saturday, 28th February 2026, writes Peter McCalister.
The venue is the rooms of the Royal Scottish Pipers Society, 127 Rose St North Lane, Edinburgh EH2 4BB, starting at 9.30am.
Entries and enquiries to peter.mccalister1939@gmail.com. The closing date for entries is 12th January 2026. The winner receives the Quaich and the Piobaireachd Society pipe banner.
Competitors should submit two tunes with their entries, one of which they will be asked to play on the day. Players will receive the name of the tune selected by the judges in the final tuning room. Competitors may not submit any tune with which they have previously won first prize in the competition.
Conditions for eligibility are as follows:
- Competitors must be members of the Piobaireachd Society. (Join here.)
- Competitors must be aged 18 or over.
- Competitors must be amateur pipers. In general, an amateur piper is someone who has never accepted a money prize in a senior solo competition.
- Competitors must not be members of the Competing Pipers Association.
- Anyone in doubt about their eligibility should contact the competition organiser.
This competition has been increasingly popular in recent years. In the event that there are significantly more than 25 entries there will be a ballot, and the first 25 entries drawn will be selected to play, plus reserves. Those who are unsuccessful in this ballot will be definite confirmed entries for the 2027 competition, if they intend to enter that.
The AKQ is promoted by the Piobaireachd Society and organised by its Music Committee. Archie Kenneth was editor of the Society’s publications from 1963 until his death in 1989. He prepared for publication books 11-14.
Book 15 was almost ready when he passed away. It was completed by Archie’s close friend James Campbell, Capt. John MacLellan and Hugh MacCallum. In a note in the Preface to Book 15 they write, ‘The Society’s publications from Book 11 onwards are the fruit of his [Archie Kenneth’s] wisdom and scholarship….it is our good fortune that the manuscript that he left was substantially in shape for printing.
‘The responsibility for …. seeing the work through the press has fallen to us. The task has served to remind us of Archie’s unique mastery of his subject, also of the debt owed to him by present and future students of the intriguing mystery of ceòl mòr.’
Kilberry Book of Ceòl Meadhonach – Middle Music – digital book
This book was compiled and edited by Captain John Campbell, Kilberry, and his more famous son Archibald.
Published in 1909, the year of Campbell senior’s death, the book is a compendium of old Gaelic airs and song tunes. Not piobaireachd but not the rigid slow march either.
There are 43 tunes each with an historical note and, as one would expect with a Kilberry production, an erudite Introduction viz:
‘The settings are the best that the editors have heard, or in the airs which they have adapted, the best that they could make. Where a song has no second part they have added what they consider an appropriate variation. Otherwise they have only diverged from the air as they have heard it sung when forced to do so by the exigencies of the pipe scale.’