Roddy MacLeod • Piobaireachd

Profile

A student of the late Duncan Johnstone, he played with the Red Hackle and British Caledonian Airways Pipe Bands, the last of which became the ScottishPower Pipe Band. In 1995, Roddy MacLeod became its Pipe Major and, over the next decade, led it to over 45 Grade 1 Championship prizes including the Cowal Championships and All Ireland Championships.

As a soloist, Roddy MacLeod won his first Gold Medal at the Northern Meeting in 1986, then the Argyllshire Gathering Gold Medal in 1988. Alongside innumerable successes as a light music competitor, Roddy MacLeod flourished as a player and interpreter of piobaireachd.

He has won the Glenfiddich Piping Championship three times and the piobaireachd event a record six times, the Bratach Gorm four times, the Silver Chanter four times, the Northern Meeting Clasp on two occasions, Bi-centenary medal (1988) and Former Winners MSR, the Senior Piobaireachd at the Argyllshire Gathering and the Former Winner MSR twice and the Gillies Cup Open Piobaireachd in London nine times. He continues to be a dynamic and exceptionally successful competitor. He is internationally esteemed as a teacher, adjudicator and recitalist and, for more than 20 years, his warm, strong-sounding 100 year-old Lawrie pipes have given immense pleasure to audiences around the world.

It is Roddy MacLeod's love and understanding of the music, and his passion to communicate it, that motivate his devotion to the cause of piping.

Deeply loyal to piping's traditions, Roddy MacLeod also has been potently engaged with innovation and development. Thus, as Principal of the National Piping Centre, established in Glasgow in 1996, he has been a prominent driving force behind such highly significant initiatives as the institution of the BA (Scottish Music - Piping), degree programme, the establishment of the National Youth Pipe Band of Scotland, the inauguration of the Piping Live!, Glasgow International Piping Festival, and the formation of the Piping and Drumming Qualifications Board. He has so far been responsible for the production and editng of two influential teaching books, the National Piping Centre's Highland Bagpipe Tutor Book and its Transition to Bagpipes book.

In 2003, he was made a Member of the British Empire in recognition of his services to piping and, in 2004, was awarded the Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Award for Music.