It is with great sadness that I write today of the passing of Willie Gilmour, known fondly in the piping world as simply ‘G’, the coolest teacher in school. Willie was a Glasgow man, but spent many years teaching in East Ayrshire schools where he taught numerous young students.  He is pictured above performing at Cumnock Academy with some of his students. His teaching supported all of the local pipe…

Nova Scotia piper Bruce Gandy has clinched the BC Pipers’ Association MacCrimmon Memorial Cairn and Medal as the winner of the Open Piobaireachd and the Mary MacLeod Collins Memorial Trophy for the Open piping aggregate at the 2021 Annual Gathering, held online April 2 & 3, 2021. This was Gandy’s eighth win of “The Cairn” at the Annual Gathering. His first win was in 1982. The online competition drew competitors…

Saint Thomas’ Episcopal School Pipe Band teaching programme in Texas has a received a major boost following the donation of $500,000 (£360,000) from school benefactors. STE will build a ‘world-class’ Scottish Arts Centre featuring practice rooms for piping and drumming, as well as a recording studio, thanks to the donation from Roy and Judith Shaw. They have agreed to donate up to $500,000 in matching donations to help rebuild its…

In the past six months we have lost two giants of piping, P/M Iain Murdo Morrison, Lewis, and P/M Jimmy McIntosh MBE of Pittsburgh and latterly South Carolina. PP reader Avi Bloomenstiel of Dallas, Texas, has kindly agreed to share his memories and historic photographs of the time he spent studying with them at a school in the US in the 1990s…. Attached are several photos that were taken at…

It is clear that all the individuals mentioned in these three articles all had a desire to improve drumming technique and were committed to influencing the musical interpretation of bagpipe melodies.  They worked together towards these interests, although there is also evidence in the papers that during the 1930s and 1940s there was resistance from pipers and other drummers to some of their ideas.  There is no doubt that their…