Atholl Highlanders Pipes & Drums Mark Musical Succession At This Year’s Parade

Entries are now closed for one of the first Highland games of the summer at Blair Atholl on May 29. Pipers have topped sixty with double figures in all grades P/A, B and C. The day before the games….. This year’s Atholl Highlanders Parade at Blair Castle in Highland Perthshire marks the retirement of two very distinguished band members who hand over duties to two musical brothers. The Parade will see the…

2022 ‘Boney Invitational’ is British Columbia’s First Live Event for More Than Two Years

By Mike Chisholm The British Columbia Pipers’ Association held their 6th annual Boney Music Memorial Invitational Competition and Recital on May 14. BC piper Zephan Knichel took the top prize. Jeanette Bonar, wife of the late Andrew Bonar who started the event, and Andrew’s son Cameron, presented the award to Zephan who will have his name engraved on the trophy for his first win at the ‘Boney’. (See picture above.) ‘It…

Pipe Band Competition Makes a Successful Return in Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland celebrated the return of pipe band competition today with a very successful event at a sunny Castle Park, Bangor, County Down. The Ards and North Down contest was the first in the province since 2019. As expected, the winners in Grade 1 were Field Marshal Montgomery (pictured). Here are the results, courtesy the Northern Ireland branch of the RSPBA, starting with Grade 1: Grade 2: Grade 3A: Grade…

Editor’s Notebook: PPBSO Archive/ RSPBA Chief/ Donald Cameron/ Finlay Drynan/ Captain John

New President Michael Grey has certainly rejuvenated Ontario’s Piping and Pipe Band Society. There’s now new archive material from the Society’s archives available, his latest Newsletter tells me. Above is film of the innovative Vale of Atholl band under P/M Ian Duncan from the North American Championships at Maxville in 1988. The blurb reads: ‘This is the last of nine bands to play on Saturday, July 30, 1988. The Vale…

Thirty-two Long Months and the Pandemic Nighmare is Finally Put Behind Us (Updated with Full Results )

It fell to the Kilbarchan pipe band to sound the first note played in anger on a pipe band contest field for almost three years. With that first introductory E this band of 17 pipers swept away months of moribundity and declared ‘the pipe band movement is back’! The occasion was the Gourock Highland Games contest held at the weekend at Battery Park, Greenock. I arrived early just as tents…