PP Ed’s Blog: South Florida/ Duncan Jonstone Contest/ RSPBA AGM/ Steven’s Drum/ SSPDT Easter School

Splendid school; splendid weather. Never more than 80 degrees, a cool breeze hovered around all week in Boca Raton. The 48 students were mostly local though some had travelled from as far as Connecticut to be there, drawn as much by our reputation for excellence in teaching as for the weather. The South Florida Pipe & Drum Academy is housed in the HQ of the Boca Fire Department and at…

FAMOUS PIPERS – DUNCAN JOHNSTONE, THE PIPER’S PIPER, PART 3

Saturday (March 10) sees the annual Duncan Johnstone Memorial competition held at the Piping Centre. Duncan was a master player, teacher and composer. Never a great competitor, however in this third instalment of this interview with editor Robert Wallace in 1996, he talks of the famous evening when he beat P/M Donald MacLeod in the final of the SPA Knockout in Glasgow…… Did you never have a go at Oban…

Results and Comments on the Archie Kenneth Quaich 2018

  By Peter McCalister This was a smaller contest than previous due to severe snow on the day and the two days before. We had 25 pipers initially on the list and on the day 13 appeared. Those included pipers from the USA, Germany, and the frozen West of Scotland. A lot of effort was made to attend in these difficult circumstances – so thanks go to all of them,…

Metro Cup: P/Sgt Duncan Shows Army Piping is at the Forefront Once More

Off the back of his successes in professional solo piping competitions in 2017, Sgt Ben Duncan from the Army School of Bagpipe Music & Highland Drumming was invited to play in the Metro Cup Invitational Piping Competition held in Newark, New Jersey. The competition took place in the Ramada Plaza Newark Liberty Airport Hotel on the 17th February 2018. This was a great opportunity for Ben and one of his…

Boney Invitational Results and Report

Robert MacNeill of the BC Pipers’ Association reports: The 2018 Boney Music Memorial Invitational Piping Competition and Recital was a great success, raising over $2170 [£1,228 approx.] for brain cancer research for the British Columbia Cancer Foundation, $828 [£468 approx.] of it from the livestreaming viewers. The BC Pipers’ Association continued the event that Andrew Bonar began in 2016 to utilize piping to further advance charitable causes. The players Kevin McLean,…