Event Date: Sunday 9th August, 2015 Form-up time: 12:00pm Form-up point: Cockburn Street, by Royal Mile Parade start: 1:00pm (strict) Finale: Holyrood Park
Finale tunes:Parade Playlist plus ‘Highland Cathedral’ Bus drop off: Johnston Terrace. Bus pick-up point: Regent Road
PLEASE NOTE CHANGE OF FORM-UP POINT
To avoid potential clashes with other events during the Fringe, the Pipefest parade will form-up at Cockburn Street
Vantage Points: there are many great vantage points to view the parade, from the Royal Mile (between North Bridge leading down the Mile), by the Scottish Parliament or in Holyrood Park. Pipefest is a free event.
Fundraising: Marie Curie Cancer Care volunteers will be collecting during the day.
Event Date: Sunday 9th August, 2015 Form-up time: 12:00pm Form-up point: Cockburn Street, by Royal Mile Parade start: 1:00pm (strict) Finale: Holyrood Park Finale tunes:Parade Playlist plus ‘Highland Cathedral’ Bus drop off: Johnston Terrace. Bus pick-up point: Regent Road
PLEASE NOTE CHANGE OF FORM-UP POINT
To avoid potential clashes with other events during the Fringe, the Pipefest parade will form-up at Cockburn Street
Vantage Points: there are many great vantage points to view the parade, from the Royal Mile (between North Bridge leading down the Mile), by the Scottish Parliament or in Holyrood Park. Pipefest is a free event.
Fundraising: our nominated charity for Pipefest 2015 is Marie Curie Cancer Care – if you would like to set up a fundraising page for this event please visit: JustGiving.com. If you set-up a fundraising page please send us the link as we would be pleased to promote. You may also select to raise funds for your own chosen charity.
For those of you travelling from overseas I wish to welcome you to Scotland, and to our friends from Scotland, thank you for supporting this great event.
In my new role as General Manager of The Famous Grouse Experience at Scotland’s oldest distillery, I am involved in many heritage and tourist events across Scotland. Some of you will no doubt be aware of my previous bagpiping life as founder and frontman of The Red Hot Chilli Pipers. As a fellow piper, I am especially privileged to be a part of Pipefest 2014, marking the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn. I was also a previous Pipe Major of the local pipe band The Royal Burgh of Stirling.
The Famous Grouse Experience at Glenturret Distillery, Scotland’s oldest distillery
Scotland’s oldest working distillery, the most visited Distillery in Scotland, was established in 1775, and is home to The Famous Grouse Experience, the spiritual home of the country’s favourite Scottish blended whisky, The Famous Grouse.
The distillery offers the opportunity to learn how a single malt is made in the traditional way, as well as learning how some of the Glenturret single malt is then blended along with other grain and malt whiskies to create The Famous Grouse, the No. 1 whisky in the UK.
Having recently completed a £250,000 investment in its key visitor areas and café, the experience has now launched its ‘Bottle your own’ service, where visitors can fill their own bottle of whisky straight from the barrel, as opened recently by their Royal Highnesses the Earl and Countess of Strathearn.
Sunday Open Day
I wish to extend an open invitation to all of you to visit the distillery on Sunday 29th June for a free tour and I really hope that some of you will bring some instruments and we could have a wee piping session in our lovely café. Those who play can get to sample some excellent whisky!
I hope you enjoy your time in our part of the world and I look forward to welcoming you to The Famous Grouse Experience in Crieff.
The parade is split into four sections: Alpha, Bravo, Charlie and Delta. Each section has a different forming-up area within the Castle Esplanade. Each section is split into a number of blocks. Pipe Bands and Clans are advised to march FOUR abreast.
The parade order and instructions will be available at least ten days before the event and published on this site and emailed to registered players before the event.
The key point is to arrive in plenty of time to tune-up and form-up. The views from the Castle Esplanade are fantastic, we have had 700 years to practice please do not be late!
To celebrate their 5th year in business, Stirling Bagpipes have got a good piping / folkie session with ‘The Scott Wood Trio‘ and other folk musicians. The event is free and takes place in the ‘Conway’s Bar’ (formerly Whistle Binkies), St Mary’s Wynd, Stirling, FK8 1BU on Saturday 28 June from 8pm onwards. All folk music and piping enthusiasts are welcome. They would like to especially invite all the pipers and drummers participating in this year’s ‘Pipefest’.
When: Saturday 28 June Where: Conway’s Bar, St Mary’s Wynd, Stirling Who: The Scott Wood Trio and guests
Don’t miss the premier performance of Allan MacDonald’s large scale composition, “The Bruce 700” at the Albert Halls, Stirling on Thursday June 26.
The composition, which has been commissioned by Stirling Council and is funded by Creative Scotland and Stirling Council, follows MacDonald’s acclaimed tribute to William Wallace whose performance at the Tolbooth in 2005 marked the 700th anniversary of Wallace’s death. Its cast features leading Scottish musicians … fiddler Aidan O’Rourke, of the group Lau, fiddler Lori Watson, Gaelic singer Kathleen MacInnes, Scots singer Rod Paterson, saxophonists Dick Lee and Fraser Fifield, cellists Neil Johnstone and Christine Hanson, fiddler Innes Watson and bassist Duncan Lyall both of the Treacherous Orchestra, harpist Mary Macmaster and percussionists Don Hay and Allan MacDonald Jnr, alongside MacDonald’s brothers, Angus (pipes) and Iain (flute).
Local musicians, piper Craig Muirhead, from Bannockburn, who studied with MacDonald at the National Piping Centre, and fiddler Siobhan Anderson will feature, as will Stirling and District Schools’ Pipe Band led by Chris Gibb and the Tolbooth’s trad group, which meets weekly as part of the venue’s ongoing education work. The ensemble will be conducted by cellist Neil Johstone, who has arranged and orchestrated the new work.
MacDonald, who won a Herald Angel for his pibroch series of concerts at Edinburgh International Festival in 2004, has performed at every major piping event in the world and is in constant demand internationally as a composer, musical director, piper, singer, workshop leader, and lecturer on Gaelic music. His music for Bruce 700 is composed for pipes, strings, brass and percussion and reflects the elements and emotions of the battle and its history. It incorporates themes from the time, most relevantly Scots Wha Hae, with Robert Burns’s lyrics imagining Robert the Bruce’s stirring address to his army before the battle.
