Saint Thomas’ Episcopal School Pipe Band teaching programme in Texas has a received a major boost following the donation of $500,000 (£360,000) from school benefactors. STE will build a ‘world-class’ Scottish Arts Centre featuring practice rooms for piping and drumming, as well as a recording studio, thanks to the donation from Roy and Judith Shaw. They have agreed to donate up to $500,000 in matching donations to help rebuild its…

In the past six months we have lost two giants of piping, P/M Iain Murdo Morrison, Lewis, and P/M Jimmy McIntosh MBE of Pittsburgh and latterly South Carolina. PP reader Avi Bloomenstiel of Dallas, Texas, has kindly agreed to share his memories and historic photographs of the time he spent studying with them at a school in the US in the 1990s…. Attached are several photos that were taken at…

It is clear that all the individuals mentioned in these three articles all had a desire to improve drumming technique and were committed to influencing the musical interpretation of bagpipe melodies.  They worked together towards these interests, although there is also evidence in the papers that during the 1930s and 1940s there was resistance from pipers and other drummers to some of their ideas.  There is no doubt that their…

Thanks to reader Dave Rischmiller for this colourised photograph of the Govan Police Pipe Band from the 1890s. As everyone knows this band was the forerunner of the Glasgow/ Strathclyde Police band. They made what we believe to be the world’s first ever recording of a pipe band. You can listen to it on the PP Archive here. History buffs will know that Govan at one time covered a large…

The Argyllshire Gathering would like to announce that to celebrate the 150th Anniversary of its inauguration a new piping competition will be created known as ‘The Argyllshire Gathering Intermediate Piping Championship’. By Jamie Mellor This will be a Championship event for pipers 22 years and under, and for the first year with the uncertainty of competitions going ahead, it has been decided to have an invitational competition with a maximum of…