Latest Edition Pipe Band Magazine/ Preview of Dunedin Games, Florida

The new edition of Pipe Band Magazine, the official publication of the RSPBA, will be available this weekend. Features include: Know Your Judges: Adjudicator Tony Sloane talks of the Worlds, band music, his favourite bands and what he’s looking for. All Our Yesterdays: Wallacestone & District one of our oldest pipe bands with some super pix. Analysis: Alistair Aitken looks at the vexed question of adjudicator positions and band formation…

Australia: President of PBA Responds to Recent Resignation of Drumming Principal

The President of Pipe Bands Australia (PBA), Mr Chris Earl, has today responded to the recent resignation by Mr Greg Bassani from his position as Drumming Principal at PBA. Mr Earl thanked Mr Bassani for all his work for pipe bands in Australia and said that through it he had ‘engaged hundreds of drummers at workshops and in structured progressive examinations over two decades’. In his response Mr Earl also…

CITES Latest – Repairs Freed from Regulation

Overseas pipers sending broken blackwood joints back to manufacturers in the UK for repair will not have to comply with the new legislation covering the import and export of African blackwood products. A spokesman for the UK’s regulator, the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA), said the European Union had issued a directive confirming the above. Other countries around the world seem to have adopted a similar stance though he said…

Piobaireachd Society Conference 2017 – New Music and Friendship in the Perthshire Highlands

The Piobaireachd Society Conference affords members, friends and enthusiasts the opportunity to gather together and, over a weekend, discuss the music and listen to some fine playing in a convivial atmosphere, writes Robert Wallace. Though it has always been thus, I can remember some fiery exchanges from my early days in the late 70s and early 80s when S MacNeill, Donald MacLeod and David Murray were to the fore. Not that Donald…

100 Guineas Solo Contest, South Africa

Nicholas Taitz reports: The overall results for the Senior 100 Guineas solo piping competition, held this weekend in Johannesburg, were as follows: Chris Terry Tom Fuller David Mason Nicholas Taitz Chris Terry (pictured above competing) made a memorable and remarkable comeback, winning the piobaireachd and dominating the light music too. He played the Lament for Donald Duaghal MacKay, a favourite tune of his, on an immaculate and quite magical bagpipe. Chris…