Editor’s Notebook: Frasers Fundraiser/ 277 Argylls/ CNE Memories/ Atholl Gathering/ Malcolm and Angus

The 78th Fraser Highlanders band from Ontario have launched a crowd-funder to help pay for a professional recording of their pre-Worlds concert on August 12th. Entitled ‘True North Strong’, the concert will celebrate piping and drumming with a distinctly Canadian flavour. The 78th Frasers are a self-supporting organisation, the band’s members paying their own way to rehearsals and competitions at home and abroad. The fundraiser is intended to help offset…

Piping Press Shop Revamp

The PP Shop has been rationalised and simplified making it easier than ever to access our tutor books, digital books and music downloads. All goods are now on one page with connections where relevant to a PayPal checkout. This checkout accepts PayPal, ApplePay and credit cards. Piobaireachd lesson downloads are already available. These number 172. The piper plays along with the complete tune played by our editor Robert Wallace and…

New Book on the World Pipe Band Championship

A new book tracing the history of the World Pipe Band Championship is now available. ‘Around the Worlds’ has been a labour of love for the author, Iain Duncan, former RSPBA librarian and an Honorary Life Member of the Association. The book tracks the iconic championship from its inception to the present day. The sub-title is ‘The Development and Evolution of the Grade One World Pipe Band Championship and the…

Guide to the Games News/ John Drysdale

Bryan Spalding, Piping Convenor at Inveraray Games: I wonder if you would be kind enough please to distribute the following press release to your readership/membership? We are currently updating our Games website and the website administrator is updating our entry system. This work should be completed later this or early next month and we intend to open entries for our contests after successful testing. The scheduled date for entries opening…

Livingstone Memorial Report

It is several years since I was in Canada so I was pleased to accept an invitation to judge the Livingstone Invitational solo contest run by the Niagara-Hamilton Branch of the Pipers and Pipe Band Association of Ontario. You can get a direct flight from Glasgow and that brought me seven hours or so later to Toronto to be met by my old Muirheads friend Mike MacDonald, the man immortalised…