The National Piping Centre is constantly adding top quality new content to YouTube. Most recently there have been interviews with Katie Robertson (The Wheeled Piper), former member of The National Piping Center Board of Directors, Alan Forbes, and energetic pipes and whistles exponent Ali Levack.
The most recent offering in the What’s In A Tune series is the wonderful hornpipe, Duncan Johnstone, with Finlay MacDonald telling the funny story of how the tune was named. And the most recent piobaireachd is The Battle of Auldern No.2 played by Connor Sinclair at last year’s Glenfiddich Championship.
Enjoy the videos below, but make sure to click through to the youtube channel and ring the bell to be notified when new videos are added each week.
Alan Forbes was involved in the establishment of The National Piping Centre from 1991. Alan tells Andrew Bova how the building was initially to be a replacement for the College of Piping, and talks about the people involved in the project in the early days and how they overcame challenges to create the wonderful building, and a legacy, for piping.
Katie speaks to Finlay MacDonald about her own distinctive fingering technique and other challenges she has overcome to become an inspirational young piper. Katie only started playing a full set of pipes over the last two years, and has been constantly pushing herself to make so much progress.
Ali Levack was the BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year in 2020 and plays pipes and whistle in his own trad band, Project Smok, with Ewan Baird on bodhran and Pablo Lafuente on guitar. Ali chats with Ailis Sutherland about his musical journey, and as a busy life as a musician on tour and unwinding and finding inspiration at home.
Listen to Finlay MacDonald tell the story of how this Donald MacLeod tune came to be named due to Donald’s friendship with Duncan Johnstone – and Duncan’s sense of humour.
Look out for the latest releases from the Glenfiddich Championship recordings every Friday afternoon — click through to the youtube channel and ring the bell to be notified when new videos are added each week.
