PP Ed’s Blog: Celtic Conns/Red Hackle/ Virginia

The Celtic Connections festival kicks off next weekend in Glasgow and looking through the programme I could find dashed little of piping interest. The highlight will be the concert by Inveraray & District and Breton band Bagad Kemper at 12.30pm on Jan 28 (tickets  £15). There is also a concert on Feb 3 featuring ‘Breabach’ a folk group that uses pipes but outside of that very little of the piob mhor…

Piobaireachd Society Reveals Full Line-up for Conference ’17

The 2017 Piobaireachd Society Conference will take place on Saturday/Sunday 25/26 March at the Birnam Hotel, Perthshire. Booking arrangements are slightly different this year than in the past. Those staying at the hotel for the weekend should contact reception directly on 01350 728030. Rates are available for two nights bed and breakfast including conference dinner on the Saturday evening. A conference fee of £40 is payable directly to the Piobaireachd Society via their…

PP Ed’s Blog: Oz Summer School/ Canada on Blackwood/ Malcolm’s Funeral

P/M Douglas Murray of Fife Police will join his brother James, Ian Lyons and Brett Tidswell as the main piping instructors at the Pipe Bands Australia summer school in Melbourne later this month. Lead Drumming Instructor is Steven McWhirter, the current World Solo Champion, ably supported by Dean Hall and others. Here’s the link. I hear that Douglas has had to pull out of the Wheel of Fortune contest owing…

Lecture on Robert Reid/ US Blackwood Instrument ‘Passport’

Perfect for whiling away part of a winter’s evening would be a trawl through the PP Audio Archive. Added today is our copy of the lecture on the life and times of P/M Robert Reid made for BBC radio in the early 1970s by Seumas MacNeill as part of his ‘Masters of Piping’ series. The delivery and musical illustrations are superb, the piping by Reid’s pupil, P/M RG Hardie. Robert Reid…

PP Ed’s Blog: SWSPDA/ Letters/ SPA Entry Forms/ SPA and Judges

Thanks to Andy McCartney for his kind comments the other day and also for the latest information on the activities of the South West Scotland Piping and Drumming Academy: Weekend workshop – Abernethy Trust, Ringford, near Kirkcudbright from Friday evening 17th February until around tea time on Sunday 19th. Pupils stay over for the two nights, but day pupils will also be very welcome, and this workshop is for both pipers…