Chairman of the RSPBA, John Hughes, has asked all band secretaries to write to their MSPs urging them get Scotland’s devolved administration to loosen the rules governing musicians practising together. Practices for all woodwind and brass instruments are allowed in England, Wales and Northern Ireland but not Scotland. The concern is that the pipes could blast an aerosol of infectious particles into the air. Recent studies have shown that this…
Today is the celebration of VJ Day, Victory over Japan Day, in the UK. To mark the occasion a piper played When the Battle’s O’er on board HMS Belfast now moored on the Thames in London but a ship that formed part of the Royal Navy’s Pacific fleet in WW2. The national celebrations were led by HRH The Prince of Wales at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire. Pipers might…
By Robert Wallace A new edition of Seumas MacNeill’s seminal work ‘Piobaireachd – Classical Music of the Highland Bagpipe’ has been published by the Piobaireachd Society. The book first appeared in 1968 to accompany a radio series presented by Seumas, original publisher and copyright holder, the BBC. Out of print, permission to re-issue has been granted to the Society. Seumas was, for 30 years plus, its Hon. Secretary. In summing…
By Ken Rogers, Calgary I have been following the recent correspondence regarding P/M James Robertson of Banff’s tune, Farewell to the Creeks, and I managed to find correspondence I had with his pupil Joe Wilson. I met Joe when he was my instructor at the College of Piping in 2005. Subsequently I kept up correspondence with him for a time and was distraught to learn of his passing in 2010….
Folklorist Stuart Eydmann has forwarded this picture from a Russian publicaion of an British Army pipes & drums in Salonika, Greece, in 1905. The Schotlandskyie (Scotsmen) must have been there as part of some Balkan action which pre-dates the Salonika Campaign of WW1. All information gratefully received. I try to keep tabs on what is happening in the world of music with the view to informing pipers and pipe bands…
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