Category: Solo Piping

News from Across the Water: SLOT Headline Charity Night/ NI Success at WSD/ David Hanna/ Blackthorn/ FM Drummers

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St Laurence O’ Toole Pipe Band will headline the ‘Kids with Cancer Charity Concert’ on Saturday 22nd March, 2025, in the Royal Hotel, Cookstown. SLOT, under the leadership of P/M Alen Tully and L/D Stephen Creighton, are the current UK Champions and World Champion drum corps. Also on the programme will be a ’70s tribute band with P/M David Caldwell and John Scullion in charge. As this is the first…

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Band Subscription Deadline Nears/ 2025 Jimmy McIntosh Workshop Details

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The RSPBA has reminded all bands that subscriptions for the 2025 season are due by this Saturday, November 30th. Currently registered bands pay £264 (adult) and £240 (juvenile). Late payment incurs a 20% penalty, adding over £52 to the adult fee. Overseas bands wishing to compete next summer in RSPBA competitions pay £132 and £120. Fees for bands registering for the first time are £288 and £264. More information: UK…

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George Watson’s College ‘Caritas Banner’ Results/ George Sherriff, Ontario, Results

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The George Watson’s College competition for the Caritas Banner was held at the Edinburgh school yesterday, November 24. Organiser P/M Ben Duncan reported: ‘It was a great day of tunes with 55 pipers entered and some of the very best in the business on the pen. The event was kindly sponsored by the Piobaireachd Society and Kintail Bagpipes. ‘The winner Fraser Hamilton received the coveted Caritas Banner and a beautiful…

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Editor’s Notebook: Northern Winter School/ Caritas Banner/ Letters/ Sound of the Somme

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Snow falls on cedars here on the North German plain as the 2024 Winter School draws to a close. It was a rewarding week of long days teaching and long evenings round the hostel campfire. Pictured above is one of the 60+ piping students, 16-year-Niklas Helmke. He was placed second in the Under 18 Piobaireachd at Inverness this year and will be back again in 2025. This lad tunes accurately,…

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Readers Respond to Peter MacLeod Reel Query/ Scots Guards KO Date Change/ Talk Piobaireachd

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Dougie Pincock: ‘That Peter MacLeod reel [above] is known nowadays as The Highlanders’ Institute. It appears under that name in the ‘Bicentennial Collection’ of the music of both Peter MacLeods Snr. and Jnr. published in the USA by Donald Varella. ‘I learned the tune from Pipe Major Iain MacDonald of Neilston, and played it in the Glasgow folk group Kentigern in the late ’70s/early ’80s. Iain might well have had…

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