Pipe Major Donald MacLeod MBE seldom spoke of his early years or of his adventures during World War Two. What little we know from various sources reveals him to be much more than a marvellous musician and teacher. Donald was an extremely resourceful and courageous soldier. We had all heard the rumour that he had for a short time been a prisoner of the Nazis but had escaped. Wee Donald would almost always divert any…
Details of next week’s Uist & Barra Professional Invitational Competition have been released by Piping Convenor John Angus Smith. Those invited to play are: Callum Beaumont, Glenn Brown, Wilson Brown, Cameron Drummond, Jamie Forrester, Faye Henderson, Finlay Johnston, Roderick MacLeod, William McCallum, Douglas Murray, Niall Stewart and Craig Sutherland Entry is £12; venue: College of Piping; date: March 4 at 9am. Pipers will compete in ceol mor, ceol beag and…
Next month sees the annual Donald Macleod Memorial competition in Stornoway, Isle of Lewis. Few people knew the late pipe major as intimately as the author of this article for whom Donald wrote the popular 2/4 march ‘P/M Jim McWilliams’……. Today everyone can look up the achievements of Pipe Major Donald MacLeod MBE on Wikipedia. However, you can’t get to know or appreciate what a fine man he was from lists of facts….
Heading home now after five solid days of teaching in Florida. Think we progressed the cause of piping and drumming another few notches. Good crowd at the closing concert and everyone looking forward to next year when we plan to incorporate a band and solo contest into the Academy’s roster. In order to maintain a high teacher/ student ratio we capped the numbers at just over 40 this year but…
The following comes from the November 8, 1972 edition of the Oban Times and is by its then piping correspondent, John MacFadyen. The Oban Times is a popular newspaper and reflects a wide range of west Highland and Argyllshire news. To its credit it has, over the years, always had a piping column, a column usually written by a leading piper or authority on piping such as John. This article…
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