One of the highlights at tomorrow’s Piobaireachd Society Conference will be a tune from Duncan MacGillivray. Duncan will be playing on John Macdonald, Inverness’s bagpipe (as above). It will help illustrate my talk on John Shone’s new book on Macdonald entitled ‘Life, Times and Music’. (Available this weekend on the PS webshop.) Duncan got the pipes from his father Donald. Donald was a student of Macdonald’s and the maestro gifted…

I received this anonymous message earlier this week: ‘This segregation of the Worlds is all kinds of wrong. My son plays in the Juvenile grade and says the kids now feel like second class musicians, not worthy of sharing the big day with their adult heroes. ‘It does not happen at other majors and there is no good reason for it to happen at the Worlds (RSPBA ineptitude aside). My…