Editor’s Notebook: Hopeful Signs for 2022 Season/ Dale Brown/ Ken Eller/ Northern Meeting 1971

Whether coincidental or by design, the considerably more positive statement which has appeared on the RSPBA website subsequent to my comments of last week regarding the forthcoming pipe band season, are to be welcomed. The Association is working hard on the majors (judges, stewards, compilers), is filling in gaps on the minors, and has their promoters, our cash-strapped Scottish local authorities, in constant and close contact. The feeling in Washington…

New Contest to Honour the Memory of James Campbell, Kilberry

James Campbell had at least two discrete sets of ardent followers. To some, he was a doyen of the piobaireachd world, the son of Archibald Campbell of The Kilberry Book of Ceòl Mòr (who knew all of the tunes in that book off by heart) and a once regular judge of competition. To others he was a superb academic lawyer and much-loved Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge, where hetaught Roman…

How Lanarkshire Bands Led the Way in the Development of the ‘Long’ 2/4 Competition March

Yesterday’s story on the eight-part Maggie Cameron brought to mind an article I wrote 20 years ago about the development of Marches, Strathspeys and Reels from four to six and eight part mega pieces, writes the Editor. It was all to do with giving the pipe band more of a stretch. The top outfits were sick of puny wee Rejected Suitor and four-part Loch Loskin to say nothing of Charles…

The Blind Piper’s Eight Part Version of the Classic Strathspey Maggie Cameron

I came across this while cleaning out some old piping manuscripts, writes Peter Aumonier. It is parts 5-8 of Maggie Cameron. As readers can see, the parts come from the pen of Archie MacNeill, the blind piper. It was given to me years ago by Jock Low at the Vancouver Island Piper’s Club, Victoria, British Columbia. By Peter Aumonier and Jack Lee Jock Low did the P/M course during WW2…

Editor’s Notebook: Lorient Festival/ Masters of Piobaireachd/ Churchill Pipes/ Melbourne/ Florida

Thankfully this summer is shaping up to what we had back in the good old days of 2019. Lorient Festival, probably the biggest celtic music festival in the world, have sent their 2022 poster celebrating the ‘Year of Asturias’. The blurb reads: ‘THE PEAKS OF CELTITUDE! [sic] Immerse yourself in the valleys and mountains landscapes of Asturias. A southerly wind is blowing towards Brittany, spreading the warmth of the south…