Tag: G. S. MacLennan

Willie Donaldson: What are we waiting for?

Willie Donaldson: What are we waiting for?

There has been a call in recent years for change in the long-standing arrangements in the big piobaireachd competitions; that the Piobaireachd Society should stop naming its own settings as the preferred ones, or stop setting the annual tunes at all, allowing the performers free choice in which tunes they […]

Pipe Major James Robertson, from the cover of the June 1961 'Piping Times'.

P.M. James Robertson’s family / Ali Levack / Irish Piobaireachd Society

Tobar an Dualchais, the archival project that digitises, catalogues and disseminates Gaelic and Scots sound recordings online, is seeking information on the surviving family of Pipe Major James Robertson, Gordon Highlanders (b. 1886-d. 1961).  Recordings of Robertson, the composer of Farewell to the Creeks, have been discovered – both spoken […]

A contemporary account of Willie Lawrie’s death

A contemporary account of Willie Lawrie’s death

Tomorrow, Remembrance Sunday, millions of people around the world will commemorate the contribution of British and Commonwealth military and civilian servicemen and women in the two World Wars and later conflicts. At 11:00 thousands of pipers will participate in ceremonies at cenotaphs and churches and elsewhere. During the First World […]

The image of an unchanging art form

The image of an unchanging art form

Part 2 of Iain MacInnes’s 2000 John MacFadyen Lecture Competition is very much part and parcel of the piping culture here in Scotland, and its shaped not just the music, but also the style of performance. It all goes back to 1781, when the Highland Society of London started the […]