Category: Solo Piping

Review: ‘Names & Places’ Concert, Celtic Connections

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Awa’ tae yer neeps. So said Ian Duncan after thanking everyone involved in this electrifying concert, thus evoking his Aberdeenshire roots and his family’s quiet brilliance as entertainers across the generations, writes Jack Taylor. The occasion was a Celtic Connections celebration of P/M Ian’s, and Vale of Atholl Pipe Band’s, groundbreaking album of 1990, ‘Names and Places’. The youngsters started proceedings. The National Youth Band of Scotland played selections reflecting…

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Glasgow Uist & Barra Association Professional Contest Returns After Two Year Hiatus

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The year’s inaugural professional piping contest will be held in Glasgow on March 4 when the city’s Uist & Barra Association presents its first major piping event for three years. It is part of the constitution of the Association that they hold an annual piping contest, yet in fairly recent times that honourable imperative has been disrupted and delayed by the covid pandemic and wild weather in the form of…

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P/M Iain Robertson 1976-2023: A Tribute

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It was with great sadness I heard of the passing of my friend Pipe Major Iain Mitchell Robertson. Iain died peacefully at his home in Palmerston North, New Zealand, on Saturday, 14th December, after a long battle with cancer. He was 46. Affectionally known as ‘Robbo’ by most, he was one of New Zealand’s top solo pipers, judges, teachers, and a long-time member and Pipe Major of the Grade 1 New…

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Responses and Conclusions in My Search for the Origin of My Historic Pipes

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A few readers got in touch after yesterday’s story on the pipes. Jim Robb: ‘Alan Bain maintained that his family’s ‘Avernish Pipes’ were made from hazel wood and had been bored with a red hot rod. They could still be played with a fairly modern chanter and were known in the family as ‘The Auld Sticks’. He said they had been made in Avernish, Kintail, and were about 200 years…

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History: GS, Bob Nicol and the 1926 Northern Meeting

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The results below, and the photograph above, are of undoubted interest to all pipers. The photograph is of George S McLennan and Robert B Nicol, clearly at a Highland Games. Not surprisingly, the original photograph, almost 100 years old, has faded due to age and the bottom of it has been torn off. What you see is one considerably enhanced thanks to modern-day technology. I found the picture in the effects of…

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