Piping Live! Well Underway – Time to Make Your Contribution!

This year’s Piping Live! got underway last weekend and as Scotland enters a new phase of freedom, the Glasgow festival is set to host another six days of world-class performance and piping competition between now and Sunday, 15 August, writes Claire Hutchison A number of exciting in-person shows are being staged for up to 1,200 attendees as part of the annual event at the National Piping Centre, alongside a rich programme of…

Editor’s Notebook: Silver Chanter/ 2022 Majors/ National Mod/ Lochaber/ Norrie Gillies

Congratulations to Angus MacColl on winning this year’s Silver Chanter. Talent will out. James from Minneapolis has written. He’s surprised so few people tuned into the livestream. I think there will be many more catch Angus and the others on catch-up James. But you have a point. The Silver Chanter has lost some stardust since it was moved from Dunvegan Castle. The NPC did well rescuing it. Now they need…

Northern Ireland Pipe Band Festival Heading for a Sell Out/ Province Stages Live Outdoor Solo Piping and Drumming

When the RSPBA NI Branch abandoned their contest programme they resolved to hold a series of Pipe Band Festivals and they get underway this Saturday, 7th August, with the Antrim & Newtownabbey Pipe Band Festival. It will take place at the Antrim Castle Gardens and it is supported by the local council and will feature bands, drum majors and Highland dancers performing under the RSPBA’s jurisdiction for the first time…

Northern Ireland’s Pipe Bands Return to Action

Toward the end of May 2021 the NI Executive announced that bands could undertake static outdoor practices (although no singing was allowed) and this was embraced enthusiastically by the majority of the country’s seven hundred bands. Week by week individual bands or band forums were showing photographs of bands at practice in all sorts of environments from car parks to farm yards in order to stick to the rules. Pipe…

Lorient Festival Going Ahead this Weekend/ Piping Among the Bretons – A History, Part 3

The world’s biggest festival of Celtice music is about to get underway in Brittany, France, but in a much-diminished format. Scottish Organiser Tom Johnstone told Piping Press: ‘It is on but very much reduced. ‘For Scotland we have no pipers or pipe bands also no dancers. We had two folk bands at first and it was cut down to one but they have pulled out due to the self isolation…