Archive
Grade 1 Johnstone has started a search for a new leading-drummer after Gavin Orr announced he will resign after the 2025 World Championships. Orr had been lead-drummer since late 2022, with Pipe-Major Donald Mackay running the band. He had been a corps drummer with Grade 1 Inveraray & District for […]
This August, Scotland’s Kyle Warren will release Play, his third collection of original compositions and arrangements. The book of 50 tunes, all by Warren, follows Tunez (2010) and EAT SLEEP PIPE REPEAT (2020). A former member of Field Marshal Montgomery and the pipe-major of the then Grade 2 Hawthorn of […]
As part of R.G. Hardie & Co.’s news that they’ve remodelled and narrowed their extensive line of bagpipes, we received a video of Highland Society of London Gold Medallist and Glenfiddich light music champion Connor Sinclair playing a new set of redesigned Peter Henderson pipes. Along with the world-famous Callum […]
“The celebration brought a real sense of closure to the FMM chapter of my life.” – Richard Parkes. About 100 guests attended the invitation-only event at Dunadry Hotel and Gardens in Antrim, Northern Ireland.
Originally from Crieff, Scotland, and now living in Glasgow, John Dew has a bachelor’s degree in traditional music from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. He has been making a career as a music composer, arranger, and producer, in between playing with the Grade 1 Inveraray & District and vying for […]
R.G. Hardie & Co. of Glasgow is taking a different approach by simplifying its offerings to make choosing that much easier. Equally important, the company is enabling its worldwide network of dealers to keep in-demand Peter Henderson- and Hardie-branded pipes in stock and ready to ship to pipers eager to get their hands on their new instrument.
Stuart Easton of Palmerston North, New Zealand, closed on Frank MacKinnon’s record on 14 by winning his twelfth R.U. Brown Cup for light music. Willie Rowe of Fielding, New Zealand, won the Everest Cup Piobaireachd contest and was second in the Brown Cup to gain the overall prize.
Field Marshal Montgomery won Grade 1 against two other bands, marking the first competition for the 13-time World Champions under Pipe-Major Matt Wilson, who succeeded pipe band legend Richard Parkes last autumn.
“I have actually made the suggestion that Northern Ireland should have their own association. They can be affiliated in the same ways as we are. I think it would put them in a much stronger position to have their own association up there in Northern Ireland Pipe Band Association. What would be wrong with that?”
Glasgow’s Owain Woodman Carr, Tony Doherty of East Kilbride, Scotland, and Rye, Australia’s Sophie Stringer were the Grade 1, Grade 2, and Grade 3 overall winners at the UK’s Competition League for Amateur Solo Pipers (CLASP) in-person competition held at the National Piping Centre’s McPhater Street building.
David Wilton is the pipe-major of a Grade 1 band on a heater. Police Scotland Fife is fresh off winning the Lochore (Benarty) Highland Games, beating Peoples Ford Boghall & Bathgate Caledonia and ScottishPower, and earlier in 2024 delivered a sold-out “Dancing on the Beat” (see what they did there?) […]
North Stratton, Craig Sutherland and Robert Graham were the big winners at ScotFestBC, also known as the British Columbia Highland Games. Grade 2 was the top contested pipe band competition, North Stratton winning both events against two other entrants. Sutherland enjoyed a perfect sweep in the Open solo piping, the Piobaireachd held on Friday, and the MSR and Hornpipe & Jig on Saturday, and Graham won both Open snare drumming events.
When Terry Tully talks, you’d be wise to listen. How the legendary piper, composer, teacher and pipe-major is leading the IPBA into a new era.
Grade 1 at RSPBA-sanctioned events in the UK saw another winner, after Police Scotland Fife received three out of four first-place rankings in the seven-band competition at the annual Lochore (Benarty) Highland Games at Lochore Meadows Country Park in the Kingdom of Fife. Four bands officially categorized as Grade 2 played up in the MSR event.
Sean McKeown won the Professional Piper of the Day aggregate on a sunny and warm day at the Northumberland Scottish Festival & Highland Games, the third outdoor event of the Ontario season. Kyle Wardell was the Professional Drummer of the Day. In the amateurs, Jean-Sebastien Gamache won the Grade 1 aggregate, and Aidan Hogan won the overall across the Grade 1 amateur snare events.
Bruce Gandy of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, won the 37th United States Piping Foundation Amateur & Professional Piping Championships at the Roselle Center for the Arts at the University. Gandy was awarded the overall prize – his eighth – on a Piobaireachd preference to break a tie with Houston’s Nick Hudson.