By Stuart Letford for Bagpipe.News The confirmation that the World Pipe Band Championships (as well as the Scottish Pipe Band Championships) will not take place this year, will come as no surprse to the pipe band world. At the very least, it gives us certainty. The news seems to have […]
By Burgess Hay Today is the 275th anniversary of the Battle of Culloden. As I stand here beside, but not on, the windy moor, I find it impossible not to reflect on the winds of change that swept through highland society and through piping, in particular, in the months and […]
By Stuart Letford Duncan Johnstone wasn’t really one for competitions – his 1964 victory in the Scottish Pipers’ Association’s Knockout series was pretty much his only foray into solo piping contests. As he put himself, “I was never interested in whether I could beat this man or the next. I […]
Where are you from and how did you get into piping? I was born in western North Carolina but I now live in South Carolina. As a young boy, my dad took my sisters and me to the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games in Linville, NC. This was in 1957 or 1958, […]
By Burgess Hay Today is the 275th anniversary of the Battle of Culloden. As I stand here beside, but not on, the windy moor, I find it impossible not to reflect on the winds of change that swept through highland society and through piping, in particular, in the months and […]
One of Glasgow’s best-known eateries reopens on April 26. The Pipers’ Tryst is the hospitality side of the National Piping Centre and has been acknowledged as a jewel in Glasgow’s culinary crown for years. It comprises an award-winning restaurant/bar and hotel. The Scottish Government last week advised that outdoor socialising […]
With the COVID situation in France worsening, organisers of the annual Lorient Interceltic Festival say there will be no pipe bands or dancers this year. Methill Pipe Band, Strathallan Pipe Band and Prince Charles Pipe Band (San Francisco) had been lined up to travel to Brittany to take part in […]
By Roderick D. Cannon When attempting to compare Gesto’s canntaireachd staff notation we have some helpful resources which we can call upon. There are some other written records of canntaireachd, especially one compiled by Angus MacKay consisting of short quotations of tunes. They are quite possibly from Angus’s father, but […]
The music of John MacCrimmon – the ‘Gesto Canntaireachd’ — Part 2 By Roderick D. Cannon We don’t know exactly when Niel MacLeod of Gesto started collecting his music or how long he spent on it. We do know, however, that the collection had taken shape by 1815, because in […]
The music of John MacCrimmon – the ‘Gesto Canntaireachd The 2015 College of Piping Lecture took place at the Birnam Hotel in Perthshire, Scotland in March of that year. Professor Roderick – Roddy – Cannon, who had been preparing his latest book for publication – The music of John MacCrimmon […]
By Stuart Letford Duncan Johnstone wasn’t really one for competitions – his 1964 victory in the Scottish Pipers’ Association’s Knockout series was pretty much his only foray into solo piping contests. As he put himself, “I was never interested in whether I could beat this man or the next. I […]
In our report last week of the passing of Jock Duncan we made mention of 19th century Aberdeenshire piper, Francie Markis. In an article published in March 1990 in Common Stock, the journal of the Lowland & Border Pipers’ Society (LBPS), Jock unearthed information on Markis. Although the article shed […]
Many of us have been following the COVID-19 updates from the UK, Ireland and around the world over the past year and more, and are hugely thankful that in Scotland and the UK at least, the vaccine roll out is beginning to give us hope for a return to social […]
The Clan Donald Lands Trust’s annual invitational ceòl mòr competition, the Donald MacDonald Cuach, will be held online this year for the first time in its 35-year history. Convenor, Dr. Angus MacDonald will host the event live from Armadale Castle, Isle of Skye, the five-star visitor attraction located in the […]
