Dr John MacAskill and a New Piobaireachd Recently Rediscovered

Gaelic broadcaster, writer and photographer, Cailean Maclean has unearthed a new piobaireachd composed by the late Dr John MacAskill. What’s more he has provided a copy of the tune and a recording of the writer playing it. Dr John, who died in 2003, was a renowned composer of such ceol beag masterpieces as the reel Lexie MacAskill and an article on him featured earlier in Piping Press. Cailean writes: ‘Dr John…

Preview of Scottish Schools’ Pipe Band Championship/ USPF Entry Alert & Judges for 2017 Contest

The 5th Annual competition moves to James Gillespie’s High School in Edinburgh this Sunday (12th March) for the annual competition. There will be over 80 performances with a record 81 bands, 11 quartets and freestyle ensembles in a variety of categories ranging from piping quartets for smaller groups to the top Juvenile bands going head to head for the Grand Prix. Bands from all over Scotland and the north of…

Thoughts on the 2017 Uist & Barra Ceol Mor

Some members of the old guard may be beating a selective and not too dignified retreat from the professional solo board, but any idea that the two late withdrawals from Saturday’s invitational Uist & Barra competition would somehow leave an unfillable  performance vacuum should be dismissed forthwith. There is a phalanx of excellence taking over the solo piping scene; a new generation of expert pipers is abroad, young, keen and able. Whilst…

Uist & Barra Professional Results – Callum is Triumphant

A very successful competition was held today at the College of Piping in Glasgow. The main hall was very busy throughout the day and hundreds watched this showpiece event live on Livestream. Piping convenor: John Angus Smith; Announcer Catriona MacPhee. The picture above shows the three principal winners Cameron Drummond, Callum Beaumont and Finlay Johnston. This was the second year in a row Callum and Finlay had won their respective…

PP is Back! – Editor’s Message and Results from Inverness Juniors

Good news everyone; your favourite piping web magazine is now back in the land of the living, writes the Editor. After a day of frustration caused by a serious outage in the Bluehost servers in the US we were down for a total of 15 hours – not good enough. However to be fair to them they are, by all accounts, one of the most reliable in the business and…