Pipe Major Ewan Henderson and Leading Drummer Arthur Cook have resigned from their respective roles at the Grade 1 Glasgow Skye Association Pipe Band. 2020 was to have been the last competitive season for both. Cook said: “It has been my privilege to lead the drum corps to become Grade […]
Entries are invited for the BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician Award 2021. The competition is for singers or instrumentalists aged between 16 and 27 with a passion for traditional music. Winners receive a recording session with BBC Radio Scotland, a performance at the Scots Trad Music Awards, an invite […]
In his far-reaching blog posted on this site last week, Stuart Letford questioned whether the Set Tunes should continue to be set solely by the Piobaireachd Society’s Music Committee. I suggest it is time to actually abolish the Set Tunes altogether. I have spoken on this topic before. Indeed, this […]
Today’s tune in our irregular series, ‘Stories of the Tunes’ appears although the ‘story’ behind it is quite stragithforward: it is simply a tune composed by Pipe Major Donald MacLeod in tribute to the regiment in which he served for many years. As the notes in his book of ceòl […]
Further to yesterday’s report about the forthcoming book of Evan MacRae’s memoirs, we hear of a fellow piper in the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders is currently completing his memoirs. Jimmy McIntosh MBE (94) served in the regiment from October 1939 (aged 14) until 1949. He served with the 5th Battalion, […]
We hear that the life of Evan MacRae (1922-1991), who is mentioned briefly in the Lochaber Gathering report from 1996 (below), will be the subject of a new book. Evan is remembered by many in Lochaber today from his time there working as a piping instructor in the schools. Born […]
Dr Hugh Hepburn, a keen support of piping and was a popular and well known face in the piping scene of the northwest of Scotland, died, aged 80, on May 8. The Aberdeen-born piper had a short battle with Myeloma, a form of blood cancer. Boxing was another of Hugh’s […]
Reader, Stewart Donaldson from Blairgowrie, Scotland sent us these photographs with a plea for information. He tells us the photographs were taken by Fred Oudney from Perthshire town who played in the local pipe band and also the Perth & District Pipe Band in the 1970s. The photographs are part […]
Today, we remember the great drummer, Alex Duthart (1925-1986), a huge figure in the pipe band world. Alex was destined to be a pipe band drummer. His father, John, an Ulsterman, was a drummer in the 8th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders during the First World War. Initially, Alex learned his […]
After our story yesterday about next month’s piping tribute to the soldiers captured at St Valèry-en-Caux in June 1940, several readers have reminded us about an article that appeared in the June 2002 edition of the Piping Times. The article included a photograph of the pipers of the 2nd Battalion […]
