Piping Live! director Finlay MacDonald: 'We're really trying to encourage new music'

The world of international piping is a tightly-knit one, suggests Finlay MacDonald, director of piping at Glasgow’s National Piping Centre and director of Piping Live!, the city’s annual countdown to the World Pipe Band Championships on Glasgow Green. Running from 10-18 August, the festival’s 21st edition sees the Dear Green Place once again in thrall to the alchemy of air, reed and bag.

When we spoke, MacDonald was just back from holiday in Lisbon and about to head back to Iberia to play at the Inter-Celtic Festival of Morrazo in Moaña in Galicia, Spain’s piping-rich north-west corner. MacDonald first played there 30 years ago as a member of Neilston & District Pipe Band, led by his late father Pipe Major Iain MacDonald, and is returning to perform at the event’s 40th anniversary.

Conversely, the director of the Galician event, piper Anxo Lorenzo, will be making his way to Piping Live! to perform with fiddler Eoghan Neff in their duo Eoghanxo. “The piping world is closer than ever, I guess,” observes MacDonald.

Finlay MacDonald is director of the Piping Live! festival and also director of piping at the National Piping Centre in Glasgow PIC: John Devlin

And much of it converges on Glasgow for Piping Live!, when Buchanan Street reverberates every morning with the massed reed power of pipe bands and the thronged Street Café outside the Piping Centre provides a stage for visiting band members, folk groups and individual performers, as well as hosting the festival’s popular Pipe Idol piping competition. The National Piping Centre itself is the hub of the festival, hosting recitals, competitions, talks and masterclasses.

Lunchtime recitals sees such notable Highland piping soloists as Fred Morrison, Callum Beaumont and James Duncan McKenzie tread the boards, while competitions include the CLASP (Competition League for Amateur Solo Pipers) grades one to four, the Gordon Duncan Memorial competition and the Pipe Major Alasdair Gillies Memorial Recital Challenge.

Contemporary and folk-informed piping concerts, reflecting Glasgow’s thriving “fusion” scene, include Ceol Nua at Nice’N’Sleazy on the 12th, with the Sòlás Collective, an adventurous trio led by piper Fionnlagh Mac A’ Phiocair, featuring smallpipes, Gaelic song, viola, dancing and electronics. They’re joined by another cutting-edge outfit, the Nexus Project, fronted by Australian piper Bede Patterson with saxophonist Dean Garrity and pianist Ewan Johnston.

St Luke’s on the 16th, meanwhile, sees the recently revived Croft No. Five deploy their high-energy brand of prog-folk in collaboration with piper Ailis Sutherland (who was also travelling with her trio to Galicia with MacDonald). That evening also presents John Mulhearn’s Pipe Factory, an extraordinary exploration of sound, place and the sonic possibilities of the Highland bagpipe.

And piping in the wired world is flagged up by a question and answer session at the Street Café on the 12th with Ally the Piper, the US-based player who, through her social media platforms has become the most widely known piper on the internet, with almost three million followers.

Also at the Piping Centre, three Learn@Live masterclasses will cover composition with Fred Morrison, “playing under pressure” with Cape Breton piper Matt McIsaac and reedmaking with Donald MacPhee.

The festival’s commitment to bringing on young players also informs its Emerging Talent strand, presenting musicians in the early stages of their career, such as piping tutor and competitor Emma Hill, Glasgow trio Sgòrr, the McGarrity:MacPherson Scots-Irish piping duo and the all-female group Dàna.

“We’ve always been very keen on showcasing early-career musicians and younger talent,” says MacDonald, “especially those with a more diverse musical background, not just the pure pipes and drums element. This allows younger players the chance to develop their own sound and style. In terms of emerging talent and new strands to the festival we’re really trying to push that, making sure we’re encouraging new music to be written and providing a platform for it.

“It’s a festival, there needs to be fun and engaging music, but if we can drop in an educational element, that adds to the breadth and interest of it.”

For full details see www.pipinglive.co.uk