Inveraray simply the best band of the season
AFTER the most successful season in the band’s short history, Inveraray and District Pipe Band (IDPB) have been crowned champion of champions for 2016.
Bidding for a third major title of the year at the big one the World Pipe Band Championships - Inveraray were pipped by just a single point by Northern Ireland’s Field Marshal Montgomery Pipe Band.
A huge crowd of 40,000 people gathered in Glasgow Green on Saturday August 13 to watch 230 bands from around the world compete at ‘The Worlds’.
Along with every other Grade 1 band, Inveraray and Distict competed in a March, Strathspey and Reel first, then a medley in the afternoon.
Inveraray came second, with a fourth in piping and a fifth in drumming - each uncharacteristic of the band’s results in 2016 - which essentially cost them the world title.
The result, however, meant that Inveraray and District clinched the 2016 RSPBA Grade 1 champion of champions award for most overall points over the season’s five major competitions.
In a reversal of fortune, Inveraray pipped Field Marshal Montgomery for the champion of champions title by one point. The Argyll outfit also won the 2016 champion of champions aggregate for drumming for the first time under sixtime world solo drumming champion Steven McWhirter.
Inveraray band manager Jim McMillan said: ‘This has been our most consistent season to date in Grade 1. We’ve finished in the top three at every major and ended up winning the champion of champions.
‘We also got four first places at the Scottish in Dumbarton, which was the first time we’ve achieved this in Grade 1.’
He added: ‘It was great to finish second again at ‘The Worlds’ but a pity we were only pipped by one point. I don’t think we could have played much better than we did.’
On Tuesday night the Inveraray and District quartet of pipers; Jamie Elder, Daniel McDermott, Ross Miller and Eric Ouellette won the annual international quartet competition at a packed Strathclyde Suite of the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, part of the 2016 Piping Live Glasgow International Piping Festival.
This was the second consecutive year that Inveraray and District has captured the award.
The one prize, winner-takes-all event comprises an MSR and medley section of each quartet’s choosing and is recognised as perhaps the most nerve-wracking competition in the pipe band world.
Then, on Thursday night, enthusiasts again packed the Strathclyde Suite to hear Stuart Liddell win the first annual Pipe Major Alasdair Gillies Memorial Recital Challenge.
The IDPB pipe major won against three other invited top-tier soloists, two of which are also IDPB members, Callum Beaumont of Linlithgow and Alasdair Henderson of Dunoon. The fourth competitor was Angus MacColl of Benderloch.
The format of the event enables players to perform their favourite music over approximately 30 minutes. Each had to include a competition-style march, strathspey and reel and the ground of a piobaireachd.