After two years in the Raasay Community Hall, this year’s contest was held in the Raasay House Hotel on Saturday, September 5th. Once again the audience were treated to some wonderful performances on pipes that ranged from the pitch normally played today, to concert Bb pitch and two sets of Hamish Moore’s Highland Pipes in A. This simply added to the entertainment value for Saturday’s audience.
The weather played ball, and the views back to Skye and the Red Cuillin only served as an enjoyment multiplier.
After some deliberation the spokesman for the judges’ jury, Allan MacDonald, declared the winners. In the Pìobaireachd Song category the winner was Rachel Gray, who was presented with a set of Hamish Moore pipes in A, made of mopani wood – to complement the Moore pipes in A made of boxwood that she played in the competition. Rachel’s prize pipes are an exact copy of the 1785 Black Set of Kintail in The Inverness Museum. Runner up in the pìobaireachd song competition was Angus MacColl.
The winner of the dance music competition (jigs and strathspeys & reels suitable for a step dancer to dance to) was Gary West of Enjoy Your Piping podcast fame. His reward was a cask of Raasay whisky which has a value of £3000. Runner up was once again Angus MacColl, who won a selection of limited edition Raasay whiskies (twice!).
This was Allan MacDonald’s second year judging the competition, and he opined afterwards that the contestants this year demonstrated a much greater understanding of what was required of them, with some genuine research and true originality having gone into many of the pìobaireachd airs.
The competition looks to be setting down solid roots and both Raasay Distillery and the Raasay House Hotel are keen to host next year’s event.
Finally, for those of you who are keen to hear more top-class piping in a similar but not exactly identical vein, then The Raasay Competition organisers are running a concert in Pitlochry Town Hall on Friday, October 30, the night before the Glenfiddich. An opportunity to enjoy two very contrasting styles of piping over the two days. The performers in Pitlochry are Ross Ainslie, Angus MacColl and inB, a quartet of Scottish smallpipers and Irish uilleann pipers – Brighde Chaimbeul, Fin Moore, Louise Mulcahy and Tiernan Ó Duinnchinn.
Link for buying tickets for the Pitlochry Concert is here.