Next month sees the annual Duncan Johnstone Memorial competition held at the Piping Centre. A few weeks ago piper, composer and adjudicator Stuart Finlayson, New Zealand, regaled us with tales of the late master piper who was so influential on so many people. Today we begin the first part of an interview conducted by our Editor Robert Wallace in 1996 shortly after Duncan had been awarded the Balvenie Medal for…
I am always struck by the gratitude of students. At last year’s Northern Winter School Horst Krauss presented me with this fine book ‘The Bagpipe – The History of a European Folk Instrument in Pictures’ by Fritz Schneider. The well-written text is in four languages, including English, and is graced with beautifully reproduced photographs. It says this about the GHB: ‘The British brought the Scottish bagpipe to the once worldwide…
Just back from a very enjoyable weekend on Mull teaching the kids at Tobermory High School. Calum MacLean is the local schools teacher and given that he only has two days a week to cover the whole island and neighbouring Iona it is remarkable that he can turn out a band at all. In total he has 48 boys and girls all learning pipes. It augurs well for the future…
Our Guide to the Games is proving very popular even after only one day. It gives me the opportunity of running the picture above from the collection of reader Duncan Watson. It is of a young Alasdair Gillies playing at Cawdor Castle games in the 1980s. Alasdair was a supporter of the games even after he achieved what you might call piping’s equivalent of superstar status. Too many of our…
The Piping Press Guide to the Games 2018 is published today. It is based on that of the Scottish Highland Games Association and we are grateful to them for the information. Apart from the dates, this list does not profess to be complete or totally accurate. We have done our best with the available information. The list has been published as early as possible to allow pipers and enthusiasts to plan…
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