John Dew, one of our leading piping talents, has produced his debut collection of pipe music. The book, titled simply Pipe Tunes, contains over 80 new compositions entirely from the Crieff-born piper’s pen.
The book is available at £19.50 but this will increase to £22.00 on December 14. There will be a digital version available from that date. The book can be purchased from John’s website or from The Bagpipe Shop. An “Educator’s Discount” is available from John’s website. Says John: “This is to encourage teachers to buy the book at a discounted rate with a view to having it as a source for musical material for their band or students.” Teachers and Pipe Majors should email John in the first instance.
John, who plays with Inveraray & District Pipe Band and who recently released his debut recording, The High Bridge Walk, graduated this year with a first class honours degree from the BMus (Traditional Music – Piping) Degree course at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
Outside of composing new material, John has been working to fuse classical music timbres with Scottish modes and melodies. This has resulted in a series of string quartets, orchestral preludes and music for a fused string/bagpipe ensemble. His latest project involved orchestrating three pieces of ceòl mòr for mixed classical ensemble.
A successful performer/composer, John’s tunes have been played widely by band across all grades, including his own band, Inveraray & District. The band’s Pipe Major, Stuart Liddell, wrote the Foreword in John’s book.
Said John: “Some of the material will hopefully be used in competitions, both solo and band, and some of the material is aimed more towards folk/contemporary piping styles. Hopefully, this will come across.”
On Friday, December 11, John will host a live book launch on social media at 7:30 pm GMT featuring pipers such as Austin Diepenhorst, Calum Brown, Zephan Knickel, Josh Chandler and Ross Miller.
Megan Beveridge, pictured, the first female soldier in the British Army to qualify as Pipe Major, led a historic parade through Inverness yesterday. Megan led 19th Regiment Royal Artillery on a parade through Inverness as it exercised its freedom of entry to the city. The parade was part of the Royal Artillery’s tercentenary celebrations.
Lance Bombardier Megan (21), originally from Inverkeithing in Fife, Scotland, is the youngest person in the British Army to qualify as a Pipe Major.
She started playing the pipes with Inverkeithing Pipe Band when she was nine-years-old and, on completion of her Army training at the Army Foundation College in Harrogate in 2011, requested to join 19th Regiment Royal Artillery, formerly the Highland Gunners.
In 2017, as Lance Bombardier, Megan became the first regular Army female lone piper to perform at the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo
