Editor’s Notebook: RSPBA Latest/ D McD Cuach/ NZ Piping Centre/ Seumas’s Citadel/ John Cruickshank VC/ Brisbane Contest

Well done to Walter MacGregor and Nigel Greeves, RSPBA directors, for jildying up their colleagues about the inaction over any sort of pipe band summer programme. They let loose at last month’s Association Board Meeting. According to the minutes just published: ‘W MacGregor informed the Board that the London and South England Branch had held its third online solo competition with over 100 performances, reporting it had been a great…

Editor’s Notebook: George Stoddart and the Edinburgh Tattoo/ Piping Live/ Chanter Mate/ Solo Contests

Another great disappointment of this summer, particularly for tourists, is the cancellation of the Edinburgh Tattoo, largely because of the lack of insurance cover. It set me on a rake through the PP archive and I discovered an interesting cutting from the Scotsman newspaper from August 1970. It features P/M George Stoddart, the Tattoo’s first ‘Lone Piper’. It reads: ‘Back with the old crowd is George Stoddart, for many years…

Glasgow’s Piping Live! Confirmed for 2021

Piping Live! is back for 2021 with a nine-day festival packed full of world-class performances, music sessions, recitals, competitions, book launches, workshops and so much more, writes press officer Hannah Innes.  Taking place between the 7th and 15th August 2021, the annual festival has confirmed they will present their programme online, in response to current government guidelines. However, if restrictions allow the team will do all they can to introduce a live audience element…

Archie Kenneth Results/ Aboyne Online Details/ Set Tunes 2022

The winner of the 2021 Archie Kenneth Quaich competition for amateur piobaireachd is Malta-based piper Gill Cairns. She is pictured above during her winning performance. Gill competed along with 23 other pipers in the competition held online on May 22. Competitors’ recorded tunes were then passed to the judges Iain Speirs and Euan Anderson for consideration. Gill tune was the Lament for John Morrison of Assynt House by P/M Donald…

Love Piping? Live Piping and Piping Live! Coming Your Way This Summer

Don’t despair folks. Despite the expected cancellation, yet again, of Oban and Inverness, piping enthusaists here in Scotland still have a good chance of catching some great live music this summer, writes the Editor. Director Finlay MacDonald has re-affirmed that the Piping Live! festival will be going ahead from August 7 -15 and there will an expected announcement tomorrow. The Silver Chanter contest will run, with, it is hoped, a…