Spirit of Scotland Pipe Band

Ryan Canning – maker of Canning Reeds has generously offered to support the Spirit of Scotland Pipe Band through the provision of a number of drone reeds. Ryan said that the unique nature of the Spirit of Scotland Pipe Band was a venture that he was happy to support this year. Roddy MacLeod said that the combination of drone reeds which the band would play would be greatly enhanced through the use of Canning reeds.

Visit Canning Reeds at www.canningreeds.com

Four of the Spirit of Scotland Pipe Band pipers will be competing in the prestigous Piping Live! Masters competition to be held at the National Piping Centre on Sunday 17th of August. Band members Willie McCallum, Angus MacColl, Alasdair Gillies and Iain Speirs will all compete in addition to other top invited pipers Chris Armstrong, Stuart Liddell, Jori Chisholm and Jack Lee. The event starts at 10.30 am with the Piobaireachd followed by MSR in the afternoon.

Spirit of Scotland Pipe Band member Captain (Retired) Stuart Samson has just received news that he has been awarded the MBE in the Queen’s birthday honours list. Stuart has just retired from the Army at the young age of 46 having most recently completed 6 years as Director of the Army School of Bagpipe Music and Highland Drumming.  Congratulations to Stuart.

The Herald – Scotland’s most widely read broadsheet ran a story on the Spirit of scotland Pipe Band today. To read the article follow this link: http://www.theherald.co.uk/search/   and enter solo piper.

Check out Jim McGillivray’s new series highlighting classic tunes on PipesDrums.com  For more visit Jim’s website www.pipetunes.ca

Matt McIsaac swept up all of the Professional piping prizes at the Summerside Highland Games in Nova Scotia on Sunday 29th June. Matt won the Piobaireachd, March, Strathspey and reel and the Hornpipe and Jig events. Well done Matt!

McCallum Bagpipes of Kilmarnock have provided the Spirit of Scotland Pipe Band with a complete set of wooden band chanters. Willie McCallum who last year launched his solo McC2 chanter with McCallums was instrumental in completing this deal for the band. Stuart McCallum said he delighted to support the band in this way.

Alasdair MacDonald of bagpipecovers.com is generously supporting the Spirit of Scotland Pipe Band with a new set of bagcovers and cords. The band will play with black bag covers with silver trim and black silk cords. Alasdair is tailor making the covers to fit the bag sizes of each player in the band. Roddy MacLeod said he was delighted with this gesture as he personally had played Alasdair’s cover and had found it with the non-slip patches to be the best bag cover he had ever had.

The Spirit of Scotland Pipe Band will be wearing the Isle of Skye tartan at their debut performance in the World Pipe Band Championships on August 16th. The band is hiring kilts and sporrans through R.G.Hardie’s who have given the band generous support in order to do this. Alastair Dunn, manager of R.G.Hardie’s said they were happy to support the band’s venture and looked forward both to seeing the band’s new look and also to hearing it’s performance.