Shortly after our post appeared yesterday regarding information on Pipe Major Roderick John Gillies’ pipes, we have received a query regarding a set made by the great Pipe Major G. S. McLennan. Rab Brown from Aberdeenshire, the owner of the pipes, tells us he has been playing the pipes for […]
This year’s Glenfiddich returns to Blair Castle on October 30. The prestigious 48th annual solo piping event will welcome a full live audience to the Perthshire venue’s Victorian ballroom whilst also being livestreamed. Callum Beaumont, as the overall winner of the 2021 Masters Competition, a qualifying event, receives an invite. […]
Reader, Alexander Gillies is seeking information on his late father’s pipes. Alexander’s father was Pipe Major Roderick John Gillies [pictued] and he died in 1997 aged 67. Roderick served as Pipe Major of the Cameronians just before it disbanded in 1968. He was then Pipe Major of the Royal Scots […]
Following our brief report last Thursday that Bobby Pinkman (67) had died, we are now able to provide a fuller obituary on this popular figure in the piping and pipe band scene of East Lothian, Scotland. Robert – ‘Bobby’ – Pinkman was born in Gorebridge, a former mining village in […]
1951 By Jeannie Campbell MBE In 1951, competitors for the Argyllshire Gathering’s Open Piobaireachd competition had to offer four tunes, MacDougalls’ Gathering, John GarveMacLeod of Raasay’s Lament, The Daughter’s Lament, Lachlan MacNeill Campbell of Kintarbert’s Fancy. The Gold Medal competitors were to submit six tunes of their own choice. John […]
Pipers and drummers are required urgently to participate in this year’s Scottish Music Parade tours of Germany. This will be the tenth year of the popular shows that play to large and appreciative audiences all around the country. Each concert last approximately two hours and features a mixture of modern […]
DAN NEVANS relates last week’s in-person competitions at Oban and Lochaber from the perspective of a competing piper I’ve never really been one for vacations. I’m just not good at relaxing. I always feel like the sands of my own personal hourglass increase their irreversible passage as soon as I […]
Miles Bennington has been appointed at Carnegie Mellon as its new Drumming Instructor. Miles’ appointment at the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania university comes after an extensive search, launched in June. He will work with Andrew Carlisle [Director of Carnegie Mellon’s Pipes and Drums], to elevate the stature of the university’s award-winning band. […]
Reader Dave Alton from Australia asks about pipe maintenance in the tropics. He writes: “I live in Darwin in northern Australia – the tropics. There are three seasons here: the wet or monsoon (January-May) which is characterised by torrential rains, the dry (May-October) when virtually no rain falls, and the […]
Pipers are being asked to participate in the 20th anniversary of the Piper’s Memorial at Longueval in northeast France. Sculptured by Andy DeComyn of Birmingham, England, the three metre high monument in Longueval village square [pictured] was erected on July 20, 2002. It is dedicated to all pipers who fell […]
