Canntaireachd, Conversations & Classical Piping

Shape the future of piobaireachd by bringing your ideas to a daily think tank, Monday to Thursday, 1:30pm. Taste three activities: community canntaireachd, lively discussion, and boundary-pushing performances.
How can the classical music of the Highland pipe grow to be more discoverable, vigorous and inclusive? More in tune with our times and heritage? Your voice, imagination and experience are invited! Help us to realize our vision:
A world in which pibroch features in mainstream education and performance, and is valued internationally for its positive contribution to cultural life and wellbeing.
Warm up with active participation – canntaireachd and conversation – then sit back to enjoy innovative and courageous experiments. Join us planting new seeds of excitement, unlocking the nutrients in Scotland’s Big Music:

MONDAY  11th August
1:30 Platforming – Pibroch and the public
2:15 Flaming Mad – A Piper, a Poet and a Priest 

TUESDAY 12th August
1:30 Visualizing – Scripture and multiformity
2:15 Pibroch on Harp and Whistle – with Bill Taylor and Allan MacDonald 

WEDNESDAY 13th August
1:30 The Big Sing 2025 – Learn “Alasdair Dearg” with Barnaby Brown
2:30 Singing – Melting barriers to connection

THURSDAY 14th August
1:30 Composing – Expanding pibroch’s horizons
2:15 Ceilearadh – Three Highland bagpipe sonatas by Simon Thoumire (world premiere)  

Join us in the Bothy tent outside the National Piping Centre, gathering energy for the Great Music of Gaelic Scotland!
Our long-term objective is to see a world in which…  
Outreach: Schoolchildren encounter pibroch in the classroom, eliciting a WOW experience; the connections between places and pibrochs are known to locals and discovered by visitors, enriching cultural life.  
Listeners: Players are booked by music festivals and concert halls regularly; several YouTube videos of pibroch have over a million views.
Commissioning: New pibrochs and new ways of presenting old pibrochs are commissioned annually and toured internationally, keeping this cultural inheritance vibrant and engaging.
Competitions: Research and tradition are not in silos but integrated; the existing infrastructure of solo competitions invigorates the study and practice of pibroch because curiosity and courage are incentivised.
Conservatoires: It is possible to study the canntaireachd and performance of pibroch in several Higher Education institutions globally: pibroch exists inside rather than outside prestigious musical establishments.