Entries for New Helensburgh Competition/ Piping Forum to be Held Next Month

I have set up a new solo piping competition in Helensburgh. It is sponsored by the Piobaireachd Society and two local businesses, writes Colina Helen Campbell.  All details are in the entry form attached.  This is a new solo piping competition being held following the cancellation this year of the BPC-Bicentenary Pipe Band Championships, Helensburgh, and the Rosneath Solo Piping competition. The aim of the new competition is to provide a…

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…