A superb performance of Port Urlar earned Calum Brown, Aberdeen (pictured above), the Highland Society of London’s Gold Medal at Inverness. His father Graham has supplied a partial recording of Calum’s winning performance, from the taorluath onwards.
Graham has also sent us a video of the ground recorded at the graveside of P/M John Stewart, Aberdeen City Police, who taught both father and son. It is understood Calum’s complete performance will be broadcast by the BBC this coming weekend.
After the announcement of his win, Calum spoke to Piping Press: ‘I am obviously delighted to win the Gold Medal. It is every piper’s dream. I originally started on the chanter with my dad when I was eight and I got on the pipes about nine months later.
‘He then said okay, now I’m going to put you to P/M John Stewart who had retired as Pipe Major of Aberdeen City Police. It was real honour to get tuition from John at that time because he was also teaching John McDonald, Jeffrey Lawson and Pamela Whyte, all excellent players in their own right and all from Aberdeen.
‘So I would like to say that my win is in John’s honour. After he passed away I sought tuition elsewhere and Dr Jack Taylor was my nearest person and I am ever so grateful for what Jack’s done for me. If I’ve ever needed to go over tunes or get a second opinion he was always there to help and I really appreciate his confidence-giving support.
‘I hadn’t done any special preparation for Oban and Inverness but I have to say the Gold Medal was in my sights this year because I hadn’t been focussing a lot on light music. I wanted to improve aspects of my pipes, my memory of all the tunes, how to play them and once all those things clicked together it is a lot easier to deliver an enjoyable performance.
‘I think that is the most important part – enjoying it. And if you can’t enjoy the feeling of your pipes going well, the fingers responding and knowing your tunes, then you’re never going to enjoy anything as a piper!
‘Just like Sean [McKeown] said last week after his win in Oban, I went out to enjoy my tune, not expecting to win anything but just to enjoy the experience. There’s tons of other fantastic players in the grade and to come out on top was a bit of a shock to be honest.
‘When they were reading out the results in reverse order I thought, ‘I might not be in here’, the prizes were running out and eventually it came to first place. It was all or nothing. Then my name was announced. It was overwhelming.’
Following the Northern Meeting Calum and his father Graham headed to P/M John Stewart’s grave at Laggantytown Cemetery near Aviemore. Graham said: ‘I was John’s first pupil and Calum his last, with many notable pipers in between.
‘John had tuition from some famous names, Sheriff Grant of Rothiemurchus for example, and he was also one of the last pupils of a bedridden John Macdonald, Inverness. However, most of his piobaireachd came from RB Nicol and RU Brown and this he passed on. It was John who encouraged Duncan Watson to join Aberdeen City Police so that he too could have the best access to Brown /Nicol.’
And now in fading light, Calum performs the ground of his winning tune for his late tutor, P/M John Stewart:
And now the closing variations recorded at Eden Court Theatre:
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