In these testing times a little bit of normal is all any of us want. Recently, in Dunedin, Florida, that’s just what happened. The Dunedin Celtic Music & Craft Beer Festival was held on November 21st at the city’s Highlander Park. Presented by the Dunedin Scottish Arts Foundation, this is an annual event centred around traditional and contemporary celtic music and both local and national craft beer and wine makers…

Last Sunday evening the Piobaireachd Society held a concert of ceòl mòr. It was broadcast live from the National Piping Centre in Glasgow and attracted a worldwide audience. The recital featured four pipers, Sandy Cameron, Angus MacColl, Cameron Macdougall and Iain Speirs playing eight tunes, MacDougall’s Gathering, Struan Robertson’s Salute, the Unjust Incarceration, Corryvreckan Lullaby, MacKenzie of Applecross’s Salute, Lament for Donald of Laggan, End of the High Bridge and…

As I mentioned in my piece on the first two-day Worlds at Nottingham, I had also found among old papers the attached copies of bnads and tune lists for a local competition at New Meadowbank in Edinburgh in 1948 and the World Championships at Stirling in 1974.  I have no knowledge of the winner at New Meadowbank but Stirling was won by Shotts & Dykehead Caledonia under Tom McAllister. Here…

Composer, teacher and Gold Medallist Niall Matheson has written a new piobaireachd for a war hero from his home Highland village of Newtonmore in Badenoch. Colonel Sir Thomas ‘Tommy’ Macpherson died in 2014 aged 94. At the time of his passing he was believed to be the most decorated surviving veteran of the Second World War. He won three Military Crosses and France’s Légion d’Honneur among many other awards. Said…

On Friday 27 November, the Scottish Piping Society of London held a Facebook Live event to announce the results of its first ever online competition. The competition saw the Society host events for C Grade players (Piobaireachd and MSR), as well as for Amateur players and SPSL members (Piobaireachd, March, Strathspey and Reel, and 6/8 March). The winner of the C Piobaireachd, Luke Kennedy, is pictured above. The competition was…