Piping Live! and the World's: Some Observations

Piping Live! has grown in eight years to be an absolutely outstanding week, and full credit must be given to Roddy MacLeod, M.B.E. and the hard-working staff and volunteers at the National Piping Centre. There is no question in my mind that the Piping Centre has been THE driving force behind the development of the week we now have, and even the RSPBA [which does an excellent job managing and promoting the World Pipe Band Championship] has picked up the cues left by the early Piping Live! to develop the World's "package."

It was impossible to see and hear everything at the Festival, and the range of experiences available has grown enormously. There were solo piping concerts, contests and recitals; band practices, concerts and sessions; and piping music from many cultures. There were talks on history and traditions, language, song and museum tours. In George Square there were many kinds of bands, whisky tasting, Scottish food market, crafts and lots of marching!

A highlight of the week for me was the ScottishPower Pipe Band concert on Wednesday. Not only did the band sound great as a pipe band, but the orchestral pieces they did were outstanding. Part of what made them outstanding was the significant risk involved in trying to pull such elaborate music together with limited [cost factors] rehearsals. The band's success in the concert was inspirational, and it also provided some really great moments, such as during the encore when P-M Chris Armstrong started solo into a slower arrangement of "Castle Dangerous," and the audience joined in and sang along to the tune. When the pipers joined him for the next-higher tempo, the audience carried on singing. You could tell from the reaction on stage that it was a great moment for them, too.

At the World's on Saturday, I took the opportunity to listen to bands warming up for the MSR final, and then see them in final tuning. You can learn a lot about the way bands operate by watching them in the final moments before they compete. There are lots of different approaches, and seeing the top Grade 1 and 2 bands preparing to go on was [as always] food for thought about how to modify what we do at the CRPB.

Some point-form highlights overall:

• hearing the Armagh Pipers Club group - outstanding
• uilleann piper Cillian Valley
• ScottishPower concert
• Anxo Lorenzo
• hearing Dowco Triumph Street PB in the George Square performance, and then in the medley final at the Worlds. This band has developed tremendously [as you would, having to compete regularly with SFU] and they have really made a mark in the Grade 1 class.
• watching SFU, Power and Inveraray tune up.
• FMM's medley performance: absolutely brilliant in every way
• Michael Grey's recital of his compositions at the Piping Centre.
• Seeing that the World's Grade 1 results were overall about right, despite some questionable individual judging decisions

Maxville/Montreal - The End of a Great Season

This weekend the band competed at the North American Pipe Band Championships in Maxville, and then at the Montreal Highland Games the next day. There were quite a few highlights, and it was a great week with the band in Ontario and Quebec.

The good news is that the band finished into the prizes at Maxville, being 5th overall and including two 3rds in piping in the medley. The good AND bad news was that our Maxville performances in no way represented our best performances. Good in that we still made the prizes on relatively weak performances, and bad in that we did not meet out own expectations for the weekend.

The positive news out of this is that the band is developing in the right direction. We had plenty of feedback about that from judges, spectators and fellow competitors, and we are eagerly looking forward to next season. Part of the equation is how many new players we incorporated in the season, and the inability to prepare as a complete team as much as we would like/need.

Among the positive aspects of the Maxville games were solo results logged by CRPB soloists in the Grade 1 solos. All four CRPB players took prizes in one of the three Grade 1 heats. Eilidh MacDonald won the piobaireachd and marches, and was 3rd in 6/8 marches, narrowly missing the overall prize. Raphael Mercier won the strathspey/reel in his section, and was 3rd in piobaireachd. Eva Rennie was third in her piobaireach heat, and Alex Rasmussen took 4th and 5th in marches and strathspey and reels in his heat. Sadly, both Alex and Raphael missed events due to erratic scheduling of events at the same time. The band is extremely proud of the efforts of the soloists, and the results they obtained.

At Montreal Games, the band was able to pull together an excellent medley performance, and on the strength of it's 2nd place in ensemble, finished ahead of former CRPB member Gord Perry's Fredericton Society of St. Andrews Pipe Band. This was a very good performance for the band, and a well-deserved result. We followed this with a prolonged and happy celebration in the Montreal beer tent, visiting friends from across the continent, hearing and playing tunes, and also celebrating the success of friends in the New Westminster Police Pipe Band from British Columbia, who were deserving winners at both Maxville and Montreal. The NWPPB includes former CRPB members: Bryde Whelan, Aaron Malcolm, Cam Dodson [our first L-D in fall 1992], and Ann Gray, and many other friends.

So ends another season, and a great one for the band. We pulled together a whole new competition repertoire, incorporated a number of new members, made some very smooth changes in leadership and roles, continued to develop our events and programs, supported a number of worthwhile local and national events, and managed to have a lot of memorable times playing the music we love with friends we cherish.

Can't wait for the start of band in September.