Bagpipe News

Simon Fraser University crowned 2008 World Champions

BBC - Scotland - The Worlds 08.

SFU Pipe Band CD Cover - "On Home Ground"

The SFU Pipe Band was the overall winner at the 2008 World Pipe Band Championships on August 16, 2008  won this year’s Grade 1.

2nd is Field Marshal Montgomery and 3rd is Shotts and Dykehead.

2008 World Champion Results

For full results check out the RSPBA World Pipe Band Championship Web Page.

World Champion Pipe Band Historical Results

The highly coveted Grade One title remained in Scotland until 1987, when the Canadian 78th Fraser Highlanders Pipe Band became the first overseas band to win. In recent years, the title has returned to Canada with Simon Fraser University Pipe Band, and has travelled to Northern Ireland with the Field Marshal Montgomery Pipe Band, as well as travelling all the way to Australia with the Victoria Police Pipe Band. The most successful pipe bands in this competition remain Strathclyde Police Pipe Band (winning twenty times), and the House of Edgar Shotts & Dykehead Caledonia Pipe Band (winning fifteen times). Other winners include the Dysart and Dundonald Pipe Band (winning twice), the Edinburgh Police Pipe Band (winning seven times), and the Muirhead and Sons Pipe Band (winning eight times).

Full List of Pipe Band Champions 1947 - 2008

Muscians from all over the world descended on Glasgow today to kick off the annual Piping Live festival. Two hundred bands are taking part - many hoping to be crowned winners of the World Pipe Band Championships.

It is a scene more familiar to the capital in August but this week over 8,000 pipers are in Glasgow. They have come from all over the world to celebrate one of Scotland’s most noteworthy traditions.

Many of the bands are hoping to bag a prize on Saturday when Glasgow Green plays host to the World Pipe Band Championships. But for many young hopefuls it is the taking part that counts.

Pipers from around the world in GlasgowLatest Scottish news and headlines from Scotland | stv.tv | News

Until this year I served as band secretary with The Royal Scots Association Pipe Band and as such was privileged to witness at first hand the wonderful job they did as volunteer ambassadors for their country and their regiment in Sweden, Holland, Belgium, Italy, and the Republic of Belarus.

In Belarus, not noted for its social freedoms, band members were regularly to be found entertaining the general public at street fairs, restaurants, cafes, and refreshment tents, with impromptu sets on pipes and drums without hindrance from authorities, businesses, or local inhabitants. At every turn we were met with courtesy and warmth.

Welcome awaits pipers abroad . . but not at home - Scotsman.com News
.

Just enjoyed a fine ‘Piping on the Clyde’ night at the Renfrew Ferry courtesy of Wallace Bagpipes. A large crowd heard performances from the firm’s Craig Munro and an excellent young drummer Craig Lawrie, Stamperland PB, Stuart Shedden’s Lanark, and Milngavie (right) Clydebank and Fife Constablulary PBs. The sponsor laid on plenty of refreshments ensuring a very pleasant atmosphere on board.

PT Editor: Piping on the Clyde and Gordon Ferguson.

HAWICK Pipe Band travel to Glasgow Green on Saturday for the annual World Pipe Band Championships hoping for a repeat of their prize-winning performance at the British Championships earlier this year.

Pipers aim to be on top of world - Hawick Today
.

Thousands gather in Lisburn for the 2008 European Pipe Band Championships.

BBC NEWS | UK | Northern Ireland | City hosts pipe championships.

The Silver Chanter MacCrimmon Memorial Piobaireachd Competition was founded in 1967 by Dame Flora MacLeod, 28th Chief of MacLeod, with John MacFadyen and Seumas MacNeill for the purpose of encouraging top class pipers to compete at the Skye Gathering. This was much needed, as the piping competitions had been waning for some years at that time. The stratagem was a success, and the piping competitions at the Games are now well attended at all levels.

The Silver Chanter MacCrimmon Memorial Piobaireachd Competition - Times Online

Northwest Junior Pipe Band from Shoreline, WA (near Seattle) is the only novice-juvenile or juvenile pipe band from the United States making the trip to Scotland in 2008.  33 bands in both grades are competing this year, but just NWJPB from the US, competing novice-juvenile.

The band is the first youth band from Washington State to ever compete in the World Pipe Band Championships, and only the 2nd youth band from the state to travel to Scotland.  The last band was the Seattle Scottish Boys Pipe Band in 1969.  They went to the Scottish Championships and won, beating the Juvenile World Champions.

(more…)

DOWN District Council is hoping to entice the Pipe Band Championships back to Newcastle next summer.
The local authority plans to make a bid for one of next year’s piping competitions, after the town lost out to Bangor for the 2008 event.
Organisers of the annual event, which was a highlight of the town’s tourism calendar, have contacted Down District Council inviting them to make a bid to host the All Ireland or the Ulster Pipe Band championships in July or August 2009.
At a meeting of the local authority’s cultural and economic development committee last week, committee director, Ms Sharon O’Connor, outlined to politicians that the council had been contacted by the Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association about the events.

Read the Full Article

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