Bagpipe News

May 24th, 2008 The St. Andrew’s Society of Winnipeg Pipe Bands will be hosting an 18 hole Texas Scramble Tournament on May 24th. Tee-off is at 9am at the Southside Golf Course.

All are welcome to participate. The entry fee of $75 includes power cart rental and lunch. There will be prizes for longest drive, closest to the pin, as well as a putting contest, and prize for “best kilted golfer”.

For more information on this event, please contact Dave Bihun atDaveBihun@SASPB.com or any member of the pipe band.

Click HERE for Tournament Registration form.

NATIONAL PIPING CENTRE WEBSITE

Here is a home video of a Bagpiper in Edinburgh. If you have any videos please send them in.

 You don’t have to be very good to get people’s attention.

IN less than two years of playing the bagpipes, Laurencekirk Primary pupil Andrew Clark has ammassed a tremendous amount of silverware.

Eleven-year-old Andrew, who is in P7 and lives at Gallery Lodge, Logie Pert, began chanter lessons with Brechin Pipe Band in February 2005. He was fifth in his first chanter competition at Edzell in the November, then won his next at Pitlochry two months later.

READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE 

There are plenty of bagpipers out there, but how many jazz musicians make the bagpipe a part of their repertoire? James Rivers was playing his heart out at the WWOZ Jazz Tent this afternoon. WWOZ is with you for all seven days of Jazz Fest 2008.

Introduction:

Far from being a simple practice chanter, Master Gaita ® is a simple but powerful tool that lets to use the bagpipe fingering to get into and control the MIDI universe, and also to open new ways faced to the learning of bagpipe technique and music. When connected to a computer with its own program, you can, not only to play with any instrument’s sound but also perform with traditional bagpipes’ sound. This is done by using recorded and prepared samples to get a quite near reality sound. The control of the sound volume lets the performance at any time during the day without worring about posible disturbs that the bagpipe loud sound might produce.

The instrument is strongly made on a PVC tube with nine extremely sensitive tactile devices, so only the smooth contact of a finger resting on any of them is needed to activate them. A semi-rigid cable and a little plastic box make the chanter to get firm in a fixed and confortable position as if it were in its stock. A 2.5 meter long cable leaving the plastic box carries the MIDI singnals to the computer or sound module the Master Gaita is connected to.
WEBSITE

Bagpipers are being persecuted once again, here comes Culloden 2008 - Read the Article

Get a website with a Vanity Domain for your Pipe Band or Personal
Bagpiping Site for only $30 a year.

Visit http://www.bagpiper.com/info/n-87/Web-Hosting.html for more
information

For $50, members of the Ogden Legion Pipe Band, dressed in full highland regalia, will visit a lucky Mom’s house on May 10 or 11 for a personal performance. They will also leave behind a rose and some chocolates for her to enjoy on her special day.

The Mother’s Day event is one of the main fundraisers for the decorated band, which was formed in 1972 as a Calgary area youth pipe band with members ages eight to 18 years. Sponsored by the Royal Canadian Legion, Ogden Branch No. 154 in southeast Calgary, the Ogden Legion Pipe Band has become a top-calibre band that competes nationally and internationally. It has been the Grade IV provincial champions for the past five consecutive years and has also won major awards and honours in Canada and Scotland.

Proceeds from the Mother’s Day Pipes and Roses event will help to send the Ogden Legion Pipe Band to Glasgow, Scotland, in August 2008 to compete in the World Pipe Band Championships.

To book a Mother’s Day piper, call 686-4488 or 464-7212. For more information about the Ogden Legion Pipe Band, visit its website at www.olpb.ab.ca.

Piping

• Andrew Bonar
• Alastair Lee
• Jori Chisholm
• Colin Lee

Drumming

• Sarah McLatchy
• Grant Maxwell

Celtworld Dance! Spectacular 

ROYAL THEATRE, Victoria July 5th

CeltFest SUMMER SCHOOL:
Piping, Drumming, Fiddling, all Celtic Music and Song: 
July 6-11
Highland Dancing, Irish Dancing and Celtic Step Dance:
July 7-11

Sunset & Stars Gala Concert
PORT THEATRE, Nanaimo, July 12th

***Summer School*** 
REGISTRATION IS OPEN NOW!!! 
Early bird discount deadline: April 16 
Registration deadline: June 16 or until programs full

1-866-301-2358

Website - Click Here

The bagpipe, that Rodney Dangerfield of the woodwinds, is finally getting some respect.

Since UC Riverside inaugurated its degree programs in bagpipes and Scottish drums last fall, the spindly, awkward, noisy instrument and its Highland cousin have been elevated to the highest academic status possible alongside the piano, cello and clarinet within its music department.

Three pipers and one drummer have enrolled in what may be the only program of its kind in the world where students can major in pipes or drums.

That’s a long way to come for an instrument that few appreciate and even fewer can play well.

Ian Whitelaw, arguably the best piper in the Western Hemisphere, wants to change that.

Whitelaw, the new pipe director at UCR, brings a lifelong love of piping and a passion for its history and culture to the position. Ditto drumming director Ed Best, who has been playing Scottish drums since he was 8.

Walter Clark, music department chairman, is convinced that once word is out that UCR has Whitelaw teaching bagpipes and Best teaching Scottish drums, people will flock to the fledgling program…

READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE

Reach Elaine Regus at 951-368-9478 or eregus@PE.com

The Niagara Regional Police Pipe Band will host an evening of Scottish music and dance at the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 479 on Spring Street in Niagara Falls on April 12.

The show will run from 8 p.m. until midnight and will include two pipe band performances along with Scottish and Irish dancers. Food and refreshments will be on sale.

A deejay will round out the night’s entertainment with a performance.

Tickets are $20 a couple and are available at the legion or by calling Peter MacKenzie at 905-353-8771.T

KILSYTH soldier Corporal Alastair Tripney (26) had the honour of playing in front of Her Majesty The Queen.

Pipers from the five regular battalions of the Royal Regiment of Scotland (SCOTS) played at the State Banquet during the visit of French President Nicolas Sarkozy to Windsor Castle. It is the first time that the Royal Regiment of Scotland has been given the honour to be the Sovereign’s Pipers at a state banquet.

The pipers had been rehearsing at the headquarters of the Army’s School of Bagpipe Music and Highland Drumming at Redford Infantry Barracks in Edinburgh where they marched in and around the headquarters to try and recreate the Windsor Castle setting prior to playing at the state banquet before Her Majesty The Queen and the French President.

Read the Entire Article

TRADITIONAL sounds of the Emerald Isle will come to Cleckheaton tomorrow.

The Music Room will host a series of workshops with Becky Taylor, one of the few female exponents of the Uilleann, or Irish pipes, in England today.

Becky is a respected performer and teacher who has appeared at folk festivals in the UK and Europe for 20 years.

She will conduct workshops, perform her material and launch her second CD Ireland Bridge.

Becky is known for her ability to give a distinctive interpretation to traditional tunes on a variety of instruments: whistle, Uilleann pipes, fiddle, Northumbrian pipes and duet concertina.

The shop will be open all day as usual and there will be special offers including a book and CD sale.

Tony Dixon, whistle and flute maker, will arrive around noon with a full range of his instruments and

There will be a beginners’ workshop with Becky from 2pm to 3pm. Those who don’t have their own whistle can buy one at discounted price.

From 3.30pm to 4.30pm there is a Technique Toolbox workshop for more advanced players.

Workshops cost £10 each, with numbers limited to 10 participants for each session.

The workshop cost includes a free ticket to the launch party at 5pm.

This will feature a performance by members of Heretique, with the Music Room’s own Murray Grainger.

The Becky Taylor Band plays at 5.30pm and at 6.15pm there will be wine and food.

To book workshop places visit the shop or go to the Music Room website at www.themusicroom-online.co.uk and search for Whistle Workshop.

Alternatively contact Mark or Terry on 01274 852020.

The Music Room
St.John’s Works
St. John’s Place
Cleckheaton BD19 3RR
Tel +44 (0) 1274 879768

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The ninth Duncan Johnstone Memorial Piping competition was held at The National Piping Centre on 22 March 2008. The event which is run in partnership between the National Piping Centre and the Competing Pipers Association attracted a record entry of 57 competitors. Several of the adjudicators commented on the exceptionally high standard of playing. For full results see below.

Piobaireachd

• 1st. Cameron Drummond
• 2nd. Emma Buchan
• 3rd. Alen Tully
• 4th. Neil Hall
• 5th. Roddy Weir
• 6th. Peter MacGregor

MSR

• 1st. John Mulhearn
• 2nd. Jonathan Graham
• 3rd. Alen Tully
• 4th. Alasdair Henderson
• 5th. Gordon Bruce
• 6th. Keith Bowes

Jig

• 1st. Alasdair Henderson
• 2nd. Emma Buchan
• 3rd. Iain Ruari Finlayson
• 4th. Gavin Ferguson
• 5th. Jonathan Graham
• 6th. Michael Fitzhenry

On Thursday 17th April we are pleased to welcome a quartet of pipers from world champions Field Marshall Montgomery to play at the National Piping Centre Recital Series.

This will be avery exciting evening of piping with them playing together and individually. So come along to hear the reigning world champions perform!

The event starts at 7.30pm and tickets ar £8 adults/ £6 concession. They are available from the shop at the National Piping Centre or by calling 0141 353 0220.