Category: Reviews

NI News: Gareth Appointed FMM Leading Tip as Keith Retires/ Matt a Hit at Blackthorn/ Stormont Certificates

Posted on      by      Leave a comment

At a celebratory function in the Dunadry Inn last weekend, Field Marshal Montgomery Pipe Band announced that leading drummer Keith Orr had decided to stand down and that his replacement would be drum corps member Gareth McLees. This brings to an end one of the most successful partnerships in pipe band history. Keith and P/M Richard Parkes have shared in around fifty RSPBA Major Championship successes. This includes 11 World,…

More NI News: Gareth Appointed FMM Leading Tip as Keith Retires/ Matt a Hit at Blackthorn/ Stormont Certificates

Review: Recording the Folklore and Pipe Music of Nova Scotia

Posted on      by      Leave a comment

Twenty five years ago Professor Dan MacInnes gave the annual John MacFadyen Memorial Lecture. His subject was piping in Nova Scotia and the wider Canadian Maritimes. The winters were so severe for the first settlers, said the professor, that hardly a bagpipe survived. They literally cracked up – no doubt along with some of the early adventurers. By Robert Wallace They had never experience the biting bitterness of the ‘big…

More Review: Recording the Folklore and Pipe Music of Nova Scotia

Editor’s Notebook: Hogmanay/ Stuart Liddell/ Queen’s Comment/ Grading/ Royal Bagpipe

Posted on      by      5 Comments

I hope everyone had a good New Year. The Hogmanay celebrations augured well for piping. Television channels BBC Alba and BBC2 had the pipes welcoming in the midnight bells (the latter featuring the Scots Guards P&D) and Buckingham Palace even put out a video showing Paul Burns, Sovereign’s Piper, piping down the steps at Buckingham Palace playing Auld Lang Syne (best to finish on high A with that setting Paul!)…

More Editor’s Notebook: Hogmanay/ Stuart Liddell/ Queen’s Comment/ Grading/ Royal Bagpipe

2022 – A Year of Rebirth for Piping and Pipe Bands

Posted on      by      2 Comments

It was the year when we finally shook off the fear and loathing of the pandemic and the brutal authoritarianism of lockdown, now thoroughly discredited. Piping came back with a bang – but only just in time. We lost many potentially good young players, and bands and societies have all suffered a fall off in interest (and on the writing front the ever-popular MacStig is no more). By the Editor…

More 2022 – A Year of Rebirth for Piping and Pipe Bands

Rare Light Music Recording of P/M Iain Morrison at the Argyllshire Gathering

Posted on      by      3 Comments

Following last week’s features on Iain Morrison, we are very grateful to Patrick Molard in Brittany for forwarding this recording from the 1971 Argyllshire Gathering, writes the Editor. It is of Iain Murdo playing in the Former Winners’ March Strathspey and Reel. Whilst it is not Iain at his best (he seems nervous and there a few slips) it is indicative of his style of playing and the brilliance with…

More Rare Light Music Recording of P/M Iain Morrison at the Argyllshire Gathering