Tag: Pipe Band News

P/M Iain Robertson 1976-2023: A Tribute

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It was with great sadness I heard of the passing of my friend Pipe Major Iain Mitchell Robertson. Iain died peacefully at his home in Palmerston North, New Zealand, on Saturday, 14th December, after a long battle with cancer. He was 46. Affectionally known as ‘Robbo’ by most, he was one of New Zealand’s top solo pipers, judges, teachers, and a long-time member and Pipe Major of the Grade 1 New…

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Review: Recording the Folklore and Pipe Music of Nova Scotia

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Twenty five years ago Professor Dan MacInnes gave the annual John MacFadyen Memorial Lecture. His subject was piping in Nova Scotia and the wider Canadian Maritimes. The winters were so severe for the first settlers, said the professor, that hardly a bagpipe survived. They literally cracked up – no doubt along with some of the early adventurers. By Robert Wallace They had never experience the biting bitterness of the ‘big…

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Responses and Conclusions in My Search for the Origin of My Historic Pipes

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A few readers got in touch after yesterday’s story on the pipes. Jim Robb: ‘Alan Bain maintained that his family’s ‘Avernish Pipes’ were made from hazel wood and had been bored with a red hot rod. They could still be played with a fairly modern chanter and were known in the family as ‘The Auld Sticks’. He said they had been made in Avernish, Kintail, and were about 200 years…

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A Fanciful Tale On What May Have Been the Origin of My Old Pipes

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On a bright spring day in 1794 Robert Burns would open the Edinburgh Morning Chronicle to see his song ‘Scots Wha Ha’e’ published in its pages.   On this morning in that nondescript year in the Clachan at Glenfarse it is recorded that absolutely nothing happened of any merit whatsoever.  Eight year old Alexander Donnachie was waving a bunch of docken leaves at a new lamb. Said ruminant saw the greens…

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CLASP Results, January 2022

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The competition took place in the National Piping Centre, Otago Street, on Saturday 14th January, writes Margaret Houlihan Dunn. Pictured above are prize winners and competitors. Pictured below are the grade winners, from l to r: Grant Walker, Eddie Boland, Jamie Gallagher (Photographs courtesy J Slavin) Overall Winners: Grade 1 Eddie Boland; Grade 2 Jamie Gallagher; Grade 3 Grant Walker GRADE 1  Piobaireachd:  1 Eddie Boland 2 Con Houlihan  3 Graham…

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