Scottish Schools’ Pipe Band Championship is well underway in Edinburgh. Eighty one bands of various standards and sizes were ready to step off this morning. With George Heriot’s Juvenile B (pictured) first up in Hall A. Twenty-one bands in the Nov Juvenile B, seven in Nov Juv A, and six in Juvenile. A host of other bands are playing in Hall B covering less experienced ‘grades’. The contest is ideally housed in good facilities at…
Writing of Dr John MacAskill’s self-penned piobaireachd on Friday served as a reminder of the current impetus there is behind ‘modern’ ceol mor. At the end of the month we will have the Donald MacLeod Memorial contest in Stornoway (see banner ad.) where his music will be enjoyed once more by the large crowd. Donald’s tunes feature in this year’s Silver Medal lists too, and other modern tunes such as…
After a hiatus of seven years, last weekend (March 4/5) saw the Army Piping and Drumming Championships take place at the Army School of Bagpipe Music and Highland Drumming, writes Major Gordon Rowan, Director of Army Bagpipe Music and Highland Drumming. The school, at Inchdrewer House in Edinburgh, resounded to the sound of bagpipes, drums and bugles, as pipers and drummers from across the British Army competed with each other…
The editor continues with his look back at last Saturday’s Uist & Bara competition this time concentrating on the ceol beag events, the March, Strathspey and Reel and the Hornpipe and Jig, competitions he judged with P/M James Banks MBE and John Wilson…… It is surprising how some pipers give every attention to detail in their piobaireachd but not so when an MSR or Hornpipe & Jig hoves into view. Here…
Some members of the old guard may be beating a selective and not too dignified retreat from the professional solo board, but any idea that the two late withdrawals from Saturday’s invitational Uist & Barra competition would somehow leave an unfillable performance vacuum should be dismissed forthwith. There is a phalanx of excellence taking over the solo piping scene; a new generation of expert pipers is abroad, young, keen and able. Whilst…
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