Celtic Connections 2015 featured a tribute concert called Crossing the Minch which was a celebration of the life and music of Pipe Major Donald MacLeod MBE. Following a clip of the great man himself recounting his early tuition with Willie Ross (who clearly understood that small boys are easily motivated by chocolate bars), the performers showcased a myriad of Donald’s tunes in a variety of settings, from a ceilidh band to the more traditional solo piper.
The packed house in the Mitchell Theatre for Crossing the Minch was treated to Gold Medallist, Strathclyde Police stalwart and judge John Wilson playing some of his former teacher’s 2/4 marches. The musical highlight of the night was unquestionably John Mulhearn’s stunning rendition of Lament for the Iolaire, the troop ship that ran aground within sight of Stornoway harbour on New Year’s Day 1919, leading to the deaths of many servicemen who had survived the Great War.
Breabach have long been renowned for the incredibly natural sound the interplay between their instruments produces. Pipers Calum MacCrimmon and James Duncan MacKenzie switched liberally between pipes and whistles, but so smooth were the transitions that you barely noticed. The band are fully capable of entrancing their audience with a slow number or invoking the whooping and foot-tapping befitting an Old Fruitmarket crowd, but the biggest cheer of the night came during a piobaireachd.
Horomona Horo took the stage to perform a haka specially arranged to complement Breabach’s interpretation of I Am Proud to Play a Pipe — a seemingly unthinkable yet brilliant combination. The theme of the tune — preservation of indigenous culture in the face of oppression — clearly resonates deeply with Horomona’s Maori heritage, and the singer earned another enthusiastic round of applause by proudly declaring: “Scottish music is my music”. The resulting performance, combining Breabach’s up-tempo interpretation of the tune and the defiant aggression of the haka, brought the crowd to their feet.
It was back to the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall for Saturday night at Wired to the World, featuring perennial crowd pleasers Treacherous Orchestra and Michael McGoldrick alongside two African acts. Paris-born singer Coco Mbassi opened proceedings with a series of beautiful songs in the Duala language of her ancestral Cameroon, and a couple of well-received dance moves.
Treacherous Orchestra’s repertoire consists of a curious mixture of hardcore in-your-face party numbers such as the jarringly aggressive The Sly One, and tracks of arresting beauty — including the stunning opener from their new album, featuring tremendous whistle work from pipers Ross Ainslie and Ali Hutton. The very atmospheric purple and orange lighting added to an already spectacular show, and those standing on the ground floor of the auditorium had an absolute riot.
Pipes and orchestra combined once again for Allan MacDonald’s The Bruce 700 commission, commemorating the anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn. The orchestration was absolutely superb and the piece was incredibly atmospheric from beginning to end, starting with an oddly lovely arrangement of The Unjust Incarceration before slowly building the tension towards the battle so subtly that it took a while to notice what was happening. Stirling & District Schools Pipe Band took to the stage to add the martial sound of the Highland pipes and drums for the battle piece itself. At the high point of the conflict the orchestra and pipe band went into chaos mode, each player doing their own thing to create a white noise effect, the truest musical representation of the maelstrom of medieval battle you could imagine.
Daimh added their mix of Gaelic and Cape Breton flavour to The Bruce 700 by providing the music for the first half, and they were back on supporting duties again for Skerryvore’s late Friday night gig at the Old Fruitmarket,
•Words by Stuart Milne for Piping Today magazine issue 74.
Click here for a list of piping and piping-related concerts at Celtic Connections 2025