Category: Pipe Bands

The Day Willie Fergusson Met the Australian Ladies

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Further to our reports of a week or so ago on the Australian Ladies, Clive Douglas has sent us the following tale. The Ladies are pictured above outside Burns’ Cottage during their 1926 visit. Clive writes: The well known Glasgow piper and teacher Eddie McLellan told the story that Willie Fergusson was a sign writer by trade. One day he was working on a shop front sign on Buchanan Street…

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Editor’s Notebook: Highland Games Threat/ Trophy Search/ Oban Festival/ Dollar Contest/ Sandy Jones

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This from a prominent Highland games organiser: ‘On the CPA judge/pupil pronouncements that have lately been made, has anyone raised the problems this causes for competition organisers? ‘How are games committees, expected to be able to attract decent player numbers, or to maintain their ‘local’ feel, when they may not be able to use local piping adjudicators because they then wouldn’t get local competitors? ‘How can they afford to import…

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Jimmy McIntosh Scholarship/ Balmoral Summer Camps

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The inaugural cycle of the Jimmy McIntosh Piobaireachd Scholarship was completed with a culminating piobaireachd workshop held the last weekend of February, at Carnegie Mellon University, writes Joyce McIntosh. Thirty-two registered piobaireachd enthusiasts travelled to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from eight different states to receive high-level tuition with Mike Cusack and Andrew Carlisle.  Each of the two scholarship winners played a tune he/she had learned over the eight-month course of the scholarship. …

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Simon Fraser University Pipe Band to Headline Worlds Week Concert

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The Glasgow Skye Association Pipe Band is delighted to announce that our Worlds Week concert will this year be headlined by the fantastic SFU Pipe Band from Canada.  By Kurt Mackintosh Pipe Major Alan Bevan commented: ‘The band and I are very excited to be taking the stage again for the pre-Worlds Concert this August.  This will mark our fifth time playing the concert, with the last time being 2015. …

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Editor’s Notebook: North Lanarkshire Schools PB/ Jet Travel/ Uist & Barra/ Braemar/ PS Conference

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Speaking to Ross Cowan regarding the recent expansion of teaching in North Lanarkshire, he tells me he has 120 kids on practice chanter and 12 moving on to pipes this year. Who says there’s no interest out there? Other Scottish local authorities cutting back on their schools music tuition should look to this Motherwell-based council for the way forward. Says Ross:  ‘The band will be depleted this year as a…

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