SFU, PB/ PT Mags, Carbisdale, SA

The annual Glasgow Skye Association PB concert, the biggest concert in the week running up to the Worlds, is heading for a sell out. The organisers tell me that they have already sold 600 tickets and this is only March. If you haven't got yours yet then I'd get a move on. Link is on the PT Fast News. Tickets are only £17. The concert, as if you didn't know, will be given by the SFU the current World Champions. A bit closer time wise is a show being put on by Boghall and Bathgate at Strathblane Country House near Glasgow on Sat 25th April 7pm. Email donald@mackenziebagpiping.com for tickets.
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Pipe Band Mag (right) and the PT for April are out. The first has an interview with Jennifer Hutcheon one of our few female band judges. Among many other things Jennifer talks of the days when she was the only lady on the flight to the CNE in Toronto in the early 70s. I remember it well Jennifer. Was it you that was hogging the toilet! How times have changed with ladies now figuring in most of the top bands in the world. I wonder how much technological advance has helped. Are pipes easier to handle these days, lighter? Or is it that in more enlightened times the ladies are being allowed to flourish. Who knows, but long may it continue.

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The PT has the Guide to the Games and I make a plea for readers to get out and support these events. A lot of them were down in numbers last year. If you've never been round the games circuit then give it a whirl. Playing your pipes out of doors on a good day needs to be experienced. If the scenery is good then the enjoyment is heightened even more.
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College at Carbisdale begins on Sunday with Joe Wilson in charge.

I'd like to wish everyone a great week. If it is anything like last

year it will be truly memorable. I've just met Jean Louis Massart from Brussels (right in pic) and Ian Hamilton Ondrechak (left) from Ottawa who've called into the CoP on their way north for the school. Ian plays in Bethany Bassilion's 'Sons of Scotland band. Jean Louis kindly offered him a lift to C'dale. So you see, once again everything comes good if you visit the CoP.

Photograph shows them with Arthur Korff from Virginia another visitor to the CoP today. Arthur says he was very taken with the last PT with the two young pipers on the front cover. 'That's the difference between Scotland and the States. Over there we start them too late.' To continue the point, piping is booming once again in the Highlands and our school at Carbisdale is playing its part. With it, the formation of the Highland Youth Pipe Band, and a push from the Army to support young pipers and drummers , the future looks bright. One reason for the upturn is the wealth of excellent teachers doing the rounds of the schools in the north. Niall Stewart, Niall Matheson, Louise Hay, Iain Ruaridh Finlayson to name only four -- and apologies to those I've missed. Out in Argyll we have Stuart Liddell and Angus MacColl and up in Aberdeenshire we have an excellent Piping Project underway. It all augurs well for the future I'm sure you'll agree. We in the cities are doing our bit too; none more so than the CoP of course with classes in Edinburgh (Monday nights) and Glasgow. We've two weeks of an Easter School almost upon us with Joe Wilson (busy man) Stuart Cassells and Brian Donaldson all teaching. We'll be doing seven weeks again for our Summer School such is the level of interest. £70 for the week and remember --- all lessons are subsidised.

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I'm off on Sunday with a visit to to South Africa and Botswana and John Dewar before then. I haven't met John before but as he is a friend of Finlay MacRae's he can't be all bad. In SA I have a recital on the Friday night (Apr 2) and then the 100 and Junior Guineas to judge at the weekend before we head off to a residential Piobaireachd School. It is four years since I've been out. 1999 was my first school. Hard to believe it was 10 years ago. Looking forward to meeting everyone again but in particular Alan and Merlyn Munro our hosts.

I'll try to blog any noteworthy stuff as the fortnight progresses.

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PS: Pleased to see that John Angus Smith has redressed the balance as regards his coverage of the RSPBA and overseas judges controversy. His column in the West Highland Free Press this week gives the RSPBA's viewpoint. His previous coverage had taken information from a rather dodgy website and as a result was, as I wrote in a letter to the paper, 'so unbalanced as to have him falling off a cliff in his beloved South Uist'.

JA also reports that the CPA 'B' and 'C' Grade competitions held last week in the Piping Centre all went off very smoothly and were completed by 4pm. Having been critical of the CPA over the running of last year's contest I am happy to congratulate them on this year's successful day. The only adverse comments I have heard were concerned with the size of the competition rooms and the heat therein. 

I've just put the second excerpt of my CoP Lecture of 2008 on CoP TV for those interested.