GLASGOW is set to host one of Scotland’s largest bagpipe festivals this summer as hundreds of musicians from across the world will descend on the city.
Piping Live is returning to Glasgow for its 21st year as more than 30,000 attendees will flock to the city between August 10 to 18 to celebrate the musical culture of bagpipes.
The festival will host events across multiple venues this year, ranging from Glasgow Green, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum and, for the first time, Saint Luke's, as more than 700 musicians from all over the world will be taking part.
The festival aims to host lively concerts, recitals, hard-fought competitions and engaging workshops as tickets go on pre-sale from May 14.
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Finlay MacDonald, artistic director of Piping Live, says Glasgow is the perfect place to host the festival due to the city's historic roots in the Scottish music scene and said he is “genuinely humbled” by the support of everyone involved.
He said: “We are very aware that for 21 years we have used venues all around Glasgow and we have got our own venues in the city centre and the west end.
“But for us, it is important to reach out and use different venues and take the festival to different venues throughout the city and we are always so well supported by the people of Glasgow it is fantastic wherever we go.”
He added: “We are just very aware it has been a difficult few years for festivals and the creative industry, and we are genuinely humbled and pleased we have been supported to this extent, and there is nowhere like Glasgow in Scotland to put on this event.”
MacDonald also said people attending the festival can expect the staples of the big band parade and solo piping competitions, but they are also creating other events to explore more avant-garde music and contemporary piping.
He also stated collaborations are a big part of the festival and there will be acts from all over the world attending.
He said: “We are also really pleased this year to be bringing in a lot more international acts than we have the last couple of years due to Covid and the recovery.
“We have a great piper from Galicia from Spain and a great duo from Sweden coming in, but we also have pipe bands from New Zealand, Australia, Canada and all over the world coming to Glasgow for that week.
“Collaborations have always been at the core of the festival, so we are bringing players in from all over the world to work with each other and play new music.”
One of the performances for the festival at Saint Luke's involves the Celtic fusion band Croft No. Five and BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year 2023 finalist, Ailis Sutherland.
The piper will be joining the group for the first time for a special performance for the festival, which she says will be very cool seeing as she has been aware of them for quite some time.
Sutherland spoke about how living in the Highlands and Islands has shaped her as a musician and how the landscapes have influenced her music, something she is excited to share at the festival.
She said: “I started out very much a pipe band player and solo competitor, but I've spent a lot of time living in the Highlands and Islands and I do feel like those landscapes, as airy fairy it sounds, the landscape does affect the way you play music.
“I’m not sure if it is official academic research but there’s an observation that people from spikier landscapes they play a more aggressive style and more undulating landscapes it's a bit softer and smoother and I think there is something in that.”
Speaking about collaborating with Croft No. Five in Glasgow Sutherland said: “I think that’s the two important things playing the pipes.
You get to meet people and you get to see places and that's certainly something you get to do at Piping Live.”
Composer and piper John Mulhearn will also be playing his live rendition of his album The Pipe Factory at Saint Lukes with Croft No. Five.
He spoke about how it would be a special performance personally as the actual pipe factory, which made clay pipes in the 1900s and has since been left abandoned, was the muse and the recording location of his album.
He said: “It’s really cool coming to play right in the heart of what was the catalyst of the whole project.
“I was living in this area at the time when I did the album in 2019 and I think I was just trying to find a way of expressing where I lived and getting a sense of place around about the music I was making at the time.
“I was looking for a venue to record the new album in and my wife recommended the Pipe Factory.
“At the time the building was in complete disrepair and the sound just filled the full building, all the percussion sounds, all the synths, and samples of the bagpipes were all programmed in to make this big sound world which is quite unique to the bagpipes.
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“Earlier this year I was quite keen to imagine what it would sound like live, so I brought a live band together and competently reimagined the thing for a live context working with live musicians using instruments.”
Run by the National Piping Centre, the festival is celebrating its 21st anniversary and will host the renowned annual World Piping Band Championship, and drummers from all over the world will descend on Glasgow Green to compete in a battle of the bands.
For full information and tickets visit the Piping Live website here.
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