North Lanarkshire Council report the following today…. North Lanarkshire’s schools’ pipe bands have been invited to lead this year’s Tartan Day celebrations in New York City. Both the Novice and Juvenile bands will head to America next April to take part in the annual celebration of Scottish heritage. This season our Novice Juvenile B Schools’ Pipe Band on winning the ‘Champions of Champions’ title for the best performances across all five major piping…

The rescheduled professional piping competition run by the Glasgow Uist & Barra Association will be held in the National Piping Centre, Otago Street, this Saturday, September 29. Ordinarily the Uist & Barra is the first senior professional contest of the year but inclement weather last March led to its postponement. The competition affords the enthusiast the opportunity of hearing some of the best currently competing pipers. Included in the line…

The Grade 1 Lomond and Clyde Pipe Band have sent this… The band is delighted to announce that Don Bradford and Gary Corkin have joined the organisation. Don takes up the role of Pipe Major and brings vast experience to the band. Gary Corkin [formerly RUC] will lead the drum section merging both Gary’s and Allan’s corps utilising the skills sets of both to best advantage. Allan Craig has stepped down as…

Our occasional commentator The Analyst is at it again….. Apart from being well-known competition reels, what do the The Sheepwife, Charlie’s Welcome and The Traditional Reel have in common? Struggling? Same also applies to John Morrison of Assynt House, The Rejected Suitor and Alick C McGregor. Give up? If you listened carefully you would have heard them all across the two days of medleys from Grade One bands at the Worlds. Curious. You…

Highland dress, or a sloppy version of it, is exercising the mind of competing piper Brian Mulhearn…… Brian writes: ‘As someone who attends as many top piping competitions as I can, I am dismayed to see how some of the top pipers do not seem to care how they ‘turn out’. ‘Even at the major competitions it seems to be the fashion not to wear a jacket if you can…