00:00Music
00:22My name's Finlay MacDonald, I'm the Artistic Director of the Piping Live Festival.
00:26We've just had our 8th big band performance and parade from Mansfield Square right up here to the iconic Kelvin Grove Art Galleries.
00:35And this year we've had the biggest turnout of any band, over 200 pipers and drummers joining together to play music for the first day of Piping Live.
00:42And the great thing about this is, obviously we've got the World Pipe Band Championships on Friday and Saturday,
00:48but this is about taking part, it's about being part of that bigger community event,
00:52playing alongside older people, younger people, people from all different backgrounds,
00:57and just enjoying that whole joy of playing in a mass kind of band.
01:01Piping Live is now in its 22nd year,
01:04we've started to really celebrate the whole different world of piping that exists all around the globe.
01:11So we have a whole range of events from come and try sessions, so if people fancy playing the pipes and never have had the chance,
01:18we're offering come and try sessions.
01:20We run some of the highest elite competitions for solo and quartet pipe bands.
01:25We have celebrations of international talent.
01:28This year we've got amazing bands from France, from Ukraine, from Australia, New Zealand, Canada.
01:34So it really is a big celebration of piping and it's celebrating piping in all its forms.
01:39Tickets, so the main festival site is the National Piping Centre up at Coocardins.
01:44You can get day passes for the whole day, there's music from 10 in the morning till 7 at night,
01:49lots of different bands.
01:50Pipinglive.co.uk is the website for tickets.
01:53But out with that we have events in the evening, we've got events at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall,
01:58we've got the Quartets Competition, we've got the Friday Night Folk Concert at St Luke's.
02:02So all the tickets for all the events are available at www.pipinglive.co.uk.
02:07So each year the big band nominates a charity, usually a local charity,
02:12and this year we have partnered up with Ailey MacLeod Trust.
02:16Ailey MacLeod Trust do a huge amount to support young musicians in Scotland.
02:21In particular, because Ailey played the pipes, there's a focus on pipes and drums,
02:25and Ailey was a member of our National Youth Pipe Band as well,
02:28so we thought it was a very fitting charity to work with this year,
02:30and we're delighted that we're raising so much money for that fantastic charity.
02:34Hello, I am Iakin McNeil, and I'm a trustee with the Ailey MacLeod Memorial Trust.
02:39Today was a big day for the Ailey MacLeod Memorial Trust.
02:42Ailey herself was a piper, a very keen and a very talented piper,
02:46and she would have loved this atmosphere.
02:47This is the kind of event that Ailey absolutely loved getting involved with.
02:51So it was really appropriate for the Piping Live to ask us to be the charity this year,
02:56and we were delighted to be involved, and to hear and see the sight of the pipes and drums
03:00marching through Glasgow's West End was really, really, really spine-tingling for us,
03:05as a charity that supports youth music, to see so many young pipers and drummers participating in today.
03:12So a really great day for us as a small charity, but with a big heart and hopefully with a big voice as well
03:18to make a difference for young musicians across Scotland.
03:21I'm Roddy MacLeod. I'm Ailey MacLeod's father.
03:25We started this charity to remember Ailey, to follow Ailey's journey in music,
03:32and hopefully others would continue that in learning and positivity, everything that they get from music tuition.
03:41It gives them so much confidence. It gives so much to young people.
03:46So in a little way we raise funds and we try and continue that.
03:52Ailey was an amazing character. She would have loved an event like this.
03:55Coming together with other pipers, it really did build her confidence so much.
04:00She loved playing the pipes. She loved coming together with her band in Barra and Uwis
04:05and performing at events and community events. This would have been right up her street.
04:10She would have loved this. Ailey took the pipes up at 8.
04:13She started the chanter at 8 and very quickly moved on to the pipes.
04:18It really grabbed her attention. Anytime we would be in Glasgow on holiday or anything out from Barra,
04:27we'd take her up Buchanan Street. We literally had to pull her away from the buskers and the pipers that were in the street.
04:35It just caught her attention straight away. She loved the pipes.
04:39She loved the pipes and she loved the pipes.
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