Category: History

RSPBA Chairman Confirms Major Championships

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As reported in Piping Press two days ago, the RSPBA have announced significant progress in securing the ‘missing’ three major pipe band championships for the 2024 season. In a letter headlined ‘Update on 2024 Major Championships‘ and sent to bands last night, Chairman Kevin Reilly writes: ‘Dear Bands, Over the last 12 months we have reached out to over 100 contacts that included councils, private entities and individuals with regards…

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Lochaber Piping Society/ Scots Guards KO/ Piobaireachd Society Conference

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Lochaber Piping Society held its AGM recently, writes Ken Cameron, Chairman. We retain the talented team of volunteers who have successfully organised our programme over the past few years, including our Junior Piping and Drumming Competition held in late March, and the Lochaber Gathering held in late August. In addition, we have held popular recitals. Considering that the core at the heart of the Society consists of so few, the…

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£500 for Winner of NZ Piobaireachd Composing Competition

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As Piping Press readers may know, Comunn na Piobaireachd (CNP) NZ is running a competition for the composition of ceòl mòr. Entries are open from anywhere in the world. We want to put out one more round of publicity before entries close on February 29th. The full title of the competition is the Sir Ian and Neville McKay Piobaireachd Composing Competition. Ian (top) and his brother Neville are pictured in the poster…

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Editor’s Notebook: Piping Reports/ Pipers Persuasion/ Talk Piobaireachd/ Florida School/ Military Music

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Don’t you like reading about the piping heroes of the past? I certainly do. Yet as I wrote this week, media reports on our solo and band competitions are practically extinct, a dying art. Sure, you can search online and you’ll find the ‘results-and-everything-was-great’ type of article from, say, the Glenfiddich Championship, but no real opinion-based comment journalism. We used to have a piping correspondent for the Oban Times, the…

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History: Solo Piping in Edinburgh in the 1960s

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Once more underlining the critical importance of reports of piping competitions, a sadly dying art, we have this from the Oban Times of November 1967. We presume it is by their then Piping Correspondent John MacFadyen. Look out for the names of George Lumsden who passed away last week, and Malcolm McRae who tonight delivers the latest in the Piobaireachd Society’s popular ‘Talk Piobaireachd’ lectures…. The third annual piping competitions…

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