Last week was a busy and successful time for 17-year-old Skye piper Brighde Chaimbeul. Not only did she pick up first place in the Highlands & Islands C Grade MSR but she also won the BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award for 2016 – at a glittering ceremony in London’s Royal Albert Hall no less. Brighde won through to the finals from hundreds of young folk musicians from throughout Britain. She…
We are indebted to Calum MacLean, Tobermory, Mull, for this unique, handwritten copy of the famous 2/4 march Dugald MacColl’s Farewell to France – handwritten by the composer himself, the great John MacColl. It was given to Calum’s grandfather by John MacColl and is rightly displayed with pleasure on the wall of Calum’s piping room. The tune was written to commemorate the safe delivery from WW1 of John MacColl’s son…
In this concluding part of the interview given after his band, Shotts & Dykehead Caledonia, had triumphed in the 2000 World Pipe Band Championships, the popular pipe major talks us through the actual day of victory. Read the first part of this revealing and informative interview, first published in Pipe Band Magazine, here. ‘I think this year our MSR was better than when we won in 1997, and though people might think…
Now a respected member of the RSPBA’s Adjudicators’ Panel, P/M Robert Mathieson won no less than five World Grade 1 Pipe Band Championships in his highly successful career at the helm of Shotts & Dykehead. Here we run the second part of the interview he gave to Pipe Band Magazine after winning his third in 2000. It will be of great interest to everyone aspiring to similar success. Robert is pictured…
I was sorry to learn the other day of the passing of Pipe Major Archie Cairns. Archie was aged 87 and throughout his life piping was central to everything he did. An obituary in Canada’s ‘Your Life Moments’ reads: ‘Peacefully at home on 1 April, 2016, at the age of 87 with daughter Fiona at his side. He was a loving and devoted son, brother, husband, father, and grandfather. Archie…
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