Category: Pipe Bands

Northern Ireland Approves Reduced Season of Pipe Band Contests for 2022

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The 71st Annual General Meeting of the Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association (Northern Ireland) Branch took place on Saturday 27th November 2021. Representatives of seventeen member bands were in attendance along with Kevin Reilly and Brian MacMahon, the Chairmen of the RSPBA and the Irish Pipe Band Association respectively. Members heard that the Branch had facilitated a well-attended Zoom meeting of Pipe Majors and Leading Drummers on Monday 25th October at 7.30pm…

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Book of Tunes by Donald Morrison Re-Issued in Digital Format

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Thirty five years ago Donald Morrison, the Champion PIper and noted composer, compiled a book of tunes. It was never properly marketed and when Donald died in 1988 interest in it lapsed. Recent correspondence with his daughter Sheona MacDonald and Piping Press editor Robert Wallace led to its being re-compiled in digital format and it is now offered to the public as an e-book. Sheona said: ‘I am delighted with…

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Piping in WW2: Heroes of the Scottish Pipers’ Association

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The second excerpt from Jeannie Campbell’s history of piping 1939-1945 which first appeared in Pipe Band magazine in 2007……. During the war years the Scottish Pipers’ Association continued to meet in Glasgow and to run their amateur/juvenile competitions. At the beginning of the War, Malcolm MacLean Currie was the Association Secretary. The full committee is pictured above in 1936. Malcolm Currie had served during the First World War as P/M…

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Piping During WW2: Home and Abroad the Music Continued Regardless

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The current hiatus in piping activity, more particularly in pipe band activity, has been likened to a similar fallow period during WW2. What was it like then? In this series piping historian Jeannie Campbell investigates and finds that there was much more going on than might be imagined…. Pipers took their traditions with them wherever they were stationed. A Highland Games was held on the North African shores of the…

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Piper James Duncan Mackenzie, Lewis, Releases Book of Own Compositions

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Lewis piper James Duncan Mackenzie has released a book featuring 70 of his own tunes for pipes and other instruments. It includes tunes which have already become popular in both the pipe band and folk music scenes, writes Katie Mackenzie. The ‘James Duncan Mackenzie Collection’ features 52 pipe compositions, including tunes such as Smelling Fresh and Willie Bucach Macleod of Stornoway, and 18 tunes that go outside the range of…

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