An endowment fund, gifted to the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in 2022, charges us to foster artistic vigour and innovation in classical Scottish piping and to serve the whole pibroch ecosystem in perpetuity.

This is our third year collaborating with Piping Live!, curating daily events that explore how the classical music of the Highland pipe can grow to be more discoverable, vigorous and inclusive.

Join us for community canntaireachd, hands-on ancestral chanter making, and boundary-pushing performances, planting new seeds of excitement in very old music. Our vision is of a world in which pibroch features in mainstream education and performance, and is valued internationally for its positive contribution to cultural life and wellbeing.

Find us in the Bothy Tent at 12:30, Monday to Thursday, for creative conversations and courageous experiments unlocking the nutrients in Scotland’s Big Music:

Our Events
Monday 10th August:
12:30–2pm  A Cartography of Pibroch – Literature and landscape in the music of the pipe

Tuesday 11th August
10:00–12:00  Make Your Own Practice Chanter – the ancestral way
12:30–2pm  Vital Sparks – Mining the Pibroch Network for musical diamonds [more info]
Wednesday 12th August
10:00–12:00  Make Your Own Practice Chanter – the ancestral way

12:30–2pm  The Big Sing 2026 – canntaireachd made easy and energising [more info]
Thursday 13th August
12:30–2pm  Puirt Mhóra on whistle and flute with Dougie Pincock and Ivan Steele – New ways into the Big Music

What can be done to engage wider audiences? How can pibroch make a difference in other important areas of society – like education, the wider arts, even mental health? Shape the future of piobaireachd by bringing your ideas to a daily think tank. Hosted by Josh Dickson and Barnaby Brown, with diverse guests and roaming mic to gather international intelligence and focus collective energy.

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.