Editor’s Notebook: Highland Games/ SG KO Final Cancelled/ Angus MacKay Cairn/ Voice Returns/ Shotts Success/ Painter’s Piper

A report in the Sunday Times newspaper last weekend bemoaned what they saw as a decline in our Highland games. In particular they mentioned Cowal which they said could not come close these days to the 40,000 crowds it used to attract. What they failed to mention was the fact that Dunoon was no longer a pipe band championship and as such automatically cut out up to 150 pipe bands…

Results from Ontario’s Livingstone Invitational

The 45th annual Livingstone Invitational professional solo piping competition was held on May 11 at the historic James Street Armouries in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada in the Officers’ Mess of The Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders of Canada. The event was presented in two sections with a piobaireachd competition in the afternoon (each competitor to submit four tunes) and a march, strathspey, reel, hornpipe and jig of player’s own choice in the evening. …

Piping Live’s 2024 Line Up

This year’s Piping Live! programme highlights for Worlds Week 2024 were announced by Director Finlay MacDonald. He said: ‘We are proud and excited to be able to bring the 21st edition of Piping Live! To the city of Glasgow. We are thankful to our supporters, performers, participants and funders who have continued to support this event through some challenging times for the creative industries. ‘There are opportunities for pipers of all…

John MacKenzie’s Book Now Available in Digital Edition

Fifty plus years after it was first offered to the public, the P/M John MacKenzie collection of bagpipe music is now once more available as a digital download. John composed tunes all of his life, but it was in 1973, a time when new publications were infrequent to say the least, that he produced his ‘Collection of Bagpipe Music’. It was very well received, containing as it did outstanding music…

Gourock Games: First Blood to Shotts/ Leinster: SLOT ‘Outstanding’

A warm bright start at the first central belt contest of the pipe band season at Gourock. However storms moved in from the coast bringing torrential rain and the cancellation of the massed bands and march past. As the photograph shows, this was a sensible decision given the extreme weather. Winners in Grade 1 were Shotts and Dykehead who placed second from both piping judges (B Donaldson and J Wilson),…