Composer Niall Adds Another Success to his Growing Catalogue of Pipe Music

Niall Mathieson of Easter Ross has a reputation as a composer of merit and two weeks ago added yet another tune to his burgeoning oeuvre when he won a competition for a tune to commemorate the 170th anniversary of Pitlochry Highland Games, writes our Special Correspondent. Mr Matheson’s prize was £500 and he attended the games on September 10 and performed the tune for the first time in public before…

Cowal, the Worlds, the Band Bus – Memoirs of a Piper’s Moll

By A Long Suffering Pipe Band Widow As they say in the modern vernacular, ‘from the get go’, I have had a love/hate relationship with the world of piping. Looking back, I can remember fun times, interspersed with frustration and downright dislike of the whole fraternity. But as we get older we tend to remember more of the good things than the bad. Firstly, I feel I must give a…

The Scottish Schools Pipe Band Championship 2020

By Our Special Correspondent The practice is done, the preparation in train, and the first of the significant indoor competitions falls this Sunday, March 8. Notwithstanding the virus concerns, organisers are pressing ahead. From far and wide six hundred of boys and girls, all pipers and drummers, will gather and compete in the 2020 Scottish Schools Championships. Convergence on Kilmarnock, that Ayrshire town of renown, to the William McIlvanney Campus,…

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Glengarry Highland Games, Maxville, Ontario

From our Special Correspondent at the North American Pipe Band Championship and Solo Contests In sunny and warm Ontario, thousands came to the institution that is ‘Glengarry’ in the farming town of Maxville. Indoors, Jack Lee, of British Columbia, continued to enjoy a real purple patch in solos, and scored a big win in the Bar to the Piobaireachd Society Gold Medal for former winners, with a prize purse of…

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Winter Storm Weekend Underway in Kansas City

With European time cracking along, our piping and drumming friends and colleagues drawn to North America for the Midwest Highland Arts Fund ‘Winter Storm’ weekend are underway in the competition segment of the event. The above picture shows winners from last year’s contest: Alastair Lee, Jamie Troy, both British Columbia, Canada, Alex Gandy from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Andrew Carlisle from Northern Ireland now Pittsburgh, USA, and Andrew Lee, British Columbia….

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