Saturday sees this important pipe band competition being held at Lurgan, Northern Ireland. Here our correspondent in the Province, John Kelly (left), RSPBANI Honorary Vice-President, takes a look back at the championship. John acknowledges that much of what is below has been compiled largely from an article by the late Fred Walker, former President of the Northern Ireland Branch of the RSPBA. The picture above is of the Field Marshal…
Solo adjudicator John Don MacKenzie concludes his interesting feature on the great composer Willie Fergusson and some of his tunes……. There were a number of pipers from Dornie who joined the Scots Guards under P/M Willie Ross – one being my granny’s brother Christopher MacRae, Lag. Another was Kenny MacKay, who after the war became keeper at Pait Lodge in the remote Loch Monar area north of Strathfarrar. He had…
We are grateful to piping adjudicator John Don MacKenzie for this feature on one of the great pipers and composers of yesteryear, P/M William Fergusson. The above picture is of Loch Duich and Glen Shiel and is dated 1907. Willie Fergusson (1885 – 1949) was born in Arbroath. As a youth, and now living in Glasgow, he became a pupil of Farquhar MacRae. He firstly was in a Boys’ Brigade band but…
I read the other day that according to a report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences an extensive study has shown that audiences actually prefer the sound of newer violins over those made by master craftsmen such as Antonio Stradivari. Violin acoustics expert Professor Claudia Fritz, of the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, asked seven world famous soloists to play at concert halls in Paris and…
Featuring on the PP Audio Archive today is a recital given by leading piper Donald McBride in the Savoy Hotel, Kansas City, MO in March 2010. In it Donald displays all his mastery of timing and technique on a superb 1908 silver and ivory Lawrie bagpipe with a Hardie chanter (1975). Donald was taught originally by his father Willie Mc Bride, and played in his band, the Monktonhall, for many years. From 1972 until he…
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