Junior Piping Competition 2011

Latest news: The date has been set for Saturday 25 June 2011 and the location is Inverness High School.

Tulloch Castle Recital January 2011

The evening started with Craig MacKenzie from picturesque Beauly giving a very mature performance in front of this eager crowd of piping enthusiasts.  With a great sounding pipe (McCallum) he started with that lovely 3/4 The Bloody Fields of Flanders and into every popular Castle Dangerous.  With his pipes now steady he moved straight into The Braes of Brecklett, Arniston Castle and The Sheepwife.   A quick re-tune then onto melodic Sarah's Song, Phil Cunningham's composition which is a favourite with many pipers, and juxtapositioned it with the jig Kenny Gillies of Portnalong, Skye.  Craig finished his introductory recital with the 6/8's John MacColl's Farewell to The Scottish Horse and Ben Gullion.  Great stuff.  Job well done!

Euan then stepped up to play his great sounding Naill pipes.  He had his old 1980's Naill chanter polished up and set with a Duncan Watson reed sounding bright and on song.  We were in for a good evening's piping.  Euan had only 3 weeks notice for this recital and as observed by Rona Lightfoot: "You have to be on your toes as a piper, as you never know when you are going to be asked to give a recital."  Very true.

Our favourites were given an airing : 9/8s, 6/8s, slow airs, jigs, 4/4s, Hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys and reels, and two piobaireachd - The Earl of Ross' March which I thought was brilliantly played, great tempo and what a Crunluath, perfect.  The other piobaireachd was Donald MacLeod's Salute to The Glasgow Highland Club.  Very enjoyable as are all of Donald's piobaireachd.  I love them and a great way to introduce piobaireachd to all.

Piping Society Web Address

The Inverness Piping Society can now be found at the address:

invernesspipingsociety.co.uk