CLASP Results, January 2022

The competition took place in the National Piping Centre, Otago Street, on Saturday 14th January, writes Margaret Houlihan Dunn. Pictured above are prize winners and competitors. Pictured below are the grade winners, from l to r: Grant Walker, Eddie Boland, Jamie Gallagher (Photographs courtesy J Slavin) Overall Winners: Grade 1 Eddie Boland; Grade 2 Jamie Gallagher; Grade 3 Grant Walker GRADE 1  Piobaireachd:  1 Eddie Boland 2 Con Houlihan  3 Graham…

Editor’s Notebook: ‘Pipeline’ Axed/ Copyright Appeal/ Highland Dress/ Andrew Wright/ Florida Academy

So it seems the mainstream media has caught up with Piping Press and our story about the axing of key BBC Radio Scotland music shows including ‘Pipeline’. We even had one scribe claiming as an exclusive his report a full month after you read it here first. That’s how it goes and is not really important. What is is that we do all we can get the management at BBC…

The Musical Passion of a Victorian Amateur Piper – Part 3

We conclude our illuminating article on Charles Keene, 1823 -1891 (above), the Victorian illustrator, piper and contributor to the satirical magazine ‘Punch’. Excerpts are from the ‘Life and Letters of Charles Samuel Keene’ by Georgew Somes Layard, London 1892… I have to thank you again for the loan of the books which I am packing up for you and will send off today, but I would not practice from them,…

Archie Kenneth Quaich/ Piping Centre Teaching Fees/ EUSPBA Top Pipers

Entries for the Piobaireachd Society’s prestigious Archie Kenneth Quaich competition have now closed. Thirty- two pipers have put their names forward for the 25 available places. Officials of the Society will now conduct a ballot to determine who can play in the competition. It is to be held in the rooms of the Royal Scottish Pipers’ Society, Rose Street Lane North, Edinburgh, on Saturday, February 25th. There will be a…

The Musical Passion of a Victorian Amateur Piper – Part 2

We continue with our illuminating article on Charles Keene, 1823 -1891 (above), the Victorian illustrator, piper and contributor to the satirical magazine ‘Punch’…. In George Somes Layard’s book ‘Life & Letters of Charles Keene of Punch’, Keene is asked ‘Have you mastered the practice stick? Glen in his ‘Complete Tutor for the Great Highland Bagpipe’ tells us the practice chanter is more difficult to blow from having no reservoir of…