Murray Blair and Ken Eller have been working on an online show for the popular weekend piping and drumming festival ‘Winter Storm’ held each year in Kansas City, USA. The pandemic forced the cancellation of this year’s live production which should have been held in January. The show is scheduled to air on March 27 and features, among others, Stuart Liddell (pictured making his recording), Callum Beaumont, Jack Lee, and…

Ballycoan were definitely on their way and the 1950s were to see a decade of unprecedented success for them, winning, as they did, the All Ireland Championship band title on no less than seven occasions and the drumming on six. Pictured above, P/M William Wood receives the All Ireland Senior Trophy in 1951. But before we get to that terrific run of success, let us firstly go back a few…

Inveraray piper Ross Miller: I’m contacting Piping Press with the exciting news that my new tune book ‘The Roke Collection’ is now available to pre-order. The book is available to exclusively through my website until 31st March with the official release date of 30th April. Pre-order supporters will receive their copy prior to the release date. I have also made a video to celebrate one year of my album and the new release featuring…

Ballycoan is a hamlet near the village of Purdysburn on the southern outskirts of Belfast. Despite its rural setting it supports both a flute band (formed in 1951) and a pipe band both of which are private organisations and, unusually, own their own band halls. Aside from the Field Marshal Montgomery Pipe Band, which was formed just half a dozen miles further up the road outside Carryduff, the Ballycoan Pipe…