Fees for Piping Lessons Abolished in Scottish Schools for the Next Academic Year

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The news the other day that Scotland’s devolved government is to abolish fees for children learning a musical instrument at school should be welcomed, writes the Editor. We expect that this will cover piping and drumming tuition. As ever, the devil is in the detail. The £7m promised is for the school terms within the academic year 2021 -2022. Thereafter the government has pledged to work with local authority leaders…

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Argyllshire Gathering 150th Anniversary Invitational and Games Contests Announced

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The Argyllshire Gathering are to mark their 150th Anniversary by holding a ‘live’ professional piping contest. The date is Wednesday, August 25th. The invited pipers are all from, or have strong family connections with, the county of Argyll. They are as follows: Jamie Forrester, Alasdair Henderson, Finlay Johnston, Stuart Liddell, Angus MacColl, William McCallum and Sarah Muir. The competition will take place in the Argyllshire Gathering Halls in Oban. The…

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Scottish Pipers’ Association Online Professional Results (Updated with full details)

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Each competition was judged by two judges, and the competitors had to upload each performance to YouTube and send the links to the SPA. I would say that running this competition was a steep learning curve for the Association and there are definitely things that I would have done differently with hindsight, not just on the media side, but in how other things were done. By Logan Tannock, President, Scottish…

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Editor’s Notebook: Lack of Contests/ Piping Live!/ Dublin Poster/ Iain McLeod and Mod banner

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I am not surprised that bagmaker Jim Begg got almost universal support for his views on the dearth of contests this year. Piping Press has been banging on about this for some time too. It is rather late now to do anything for this summer but the performance of our promoters in keeping the national music alive over this difficult period has been poor, it must be said. Part of…

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Richard Reflects on His Four Decades of Success with Field Marshal Montgomery – Part 4

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Legendary pipe major Richard Parkes concludes this series of articles to mark 40 years of success with FMM, 40 years that has seen him capture an incredible array of trophies and awards both for the band and himself. Recognised by royalty and academia, Richard has, through his achievements, written himself into the history books. In this final section he answers a few more questions from our Editor Robert Wallace. Which…

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