Piobaireachd Society Conference 2016

Anyone who had the idea that the Piobaireachd Society was run by a bunch of old fogeys locked in a time warp of dusty decrepitude would have been quickly disabused of that notion had they attended this year’s conference held last weekend mid the glories of Highland Perthshire. Dr J David Hester had flown in from America to give us an update on his revisionist ideas, Simon Chadwick suggested links…

PP Editor’s Blog: Coeur d’Alene/ SPA Pro/ CPA Survey/ Inveraray

Tom Johnstone, President of the Scottish Pipers’ Association, has announced the judges for their forthcoming professional contest on April 9. They are P/M Ian McLellan, John Wilson, Willie Morrison and Andrew Wright. Download an entry form here. Still with the solo world, the Competing Pipers’ Association have launched a major survey of their members to try to assess the reasons for the decline in attendance at many Highland games. Secretary…

PP Editor’s Blog: White House Honour/ Craig Sutherland/ Easter School/ Drum Major Hughes

Happy  St Patrick’s Day to everyone. John Kelly in Northern Ireland has sent this from his local paper: ‘A local piper helped kick off the St Patrick’s Day celebrations in the USA by playing at a special event hosted by President Barack Obama.  Grahame Harris, from Templepatrick, was among a small group of musicians from the Cross Border Orchestra of Ireland invited to play at a lunch hosted by Mr Obama…

Important New Recording for PP Audio Archive

Added to the growing PP Audio Archive today is a recording of Iain Speirs’ actual winning performance in the 2007 Northern Meeting Gold Medal competition. Iain’s tune is Lady Margaret MacDonald’s Salute and with it he completed his set of Gold Medals, having taken the Oban equivalent with the King’s Taxes in 2002. Since then Iain has become one of our most sensitive and cultured interpreters of ceol mor, winning…

PP Editor’s Blog: Poll Results/ SPA KO/ Janet’s Funeral/ Copenhagen/ Calum recital

Our poll on the best band never to have won a World Championship title proved very popular with hundreds of opinions lodged. Participants were asked to choose between four bands, P/M Harry McNulty’s Power of Scotland band of the 1980s, P/M Ian Duncan’s Vale of Atholl, P/M Craig and Ross Walker’s Boghall and P/Ms Davy Barnes and Robert Mathieson’s Polkemmet. As the table below shows the winner was Boghall (pictured…