Helen Urquhart of the NPC has sent this… The Board of The National Piping Centre is delighted to announce that Steven Blake (above) has been appointed to the role of Director for The National Youth Pipe Band of Scotland. As the new director of The NYPBoS, Steven brings his wealth of performance, composition and recording experience to this challenging role.  Steven, a graduate of our piping degree, is a hugely…

The French government have banned all gatherings of more than 5,000 people until September and the Lorient Festival Interceltique, the world’s biggest celtic music festival, has had to be cancelled for 2020, it was announced this morning. Lorient had hoped to buck the trend of summer cancellations afflicting the piping and music worlds. Only a couple of weekes ago they were still hopeful of staging the festival. In a statement,…

The promoters of the popular Balmoral Summer Schools in the US have sent this: Coming soon to a desktop near you! The Balmoral School of Piping & Drumming will hold its 2020 summer school sessions via Zoom. Joining us through the magic of the internet will be three acclaimed instructors from Scotland, Ireland and Nova Scotia, all with incomparable records of teaching and promoting pipe music around the world.  From…

The current World Champion leading drummer is Stephen Creighton of the St Laurence O’Toole Pipe Band. Earlier this year he was the drum instructor at the Florida Pipe & Drum Academy and the editor took the opportunity of interviewing him for Piping Press about his rise to fame. It is a remarkable story of talent, determination and hard graft and as such is a lesson for any young piper or…

Put the extra time indoors to good use by learning some new tunes. Paste this code FTTHHPPT into the appropriate box at checkout to get £1 off these lessons courtesy the Piping Press Shop! And remember, every small purchase helps us keep Piping Press subscription free. What not to like? The lessons, by Robert Wallace, our Editor, are from our listings ‘Donald MacLeod Tunes’, piobaireachd and light music, ‘Selected Piobaireachd…