Isn’t it nice when old friends turn up suddenly out of the blue?
An old friend and colleague of barganews arrived in Barga last month for a short visit before once again disappearing into the distance – the piper and pipe maker Hamish Moore, who has been nurturing affiliations with Barga since he was musician-in-residence there in 2008. (articles here).
Hamish Moore has just been inducted into the Scottish traditional music hall of fame (article here)
The Scottish Traditional Music Hall of Fame is dedicated to giving acknowledgement and recognition to musicians and industry people who, by their dedication and hard work, have supported and influenced the development of Scottish traditional music during their lives.
BOTH as a piper and as a pipemaker, Hamish Moore has had a vital influence on the Scottish piping scene over the past three decades, particularly in what has become known as the “cauld wind revival” – the renaissance of Scotland’s hitherto forgotten bellows-blown bagpipes.
A time-served piper from a family of pipers, since the mid-1980s, Hamish has been producing – latterly with the help of his son, Fin – high quality sets of Scottish small pipes and Border pipes, with such success that the firm has closed its order books until it catches up with its waiting list. In concerts and recordings, Hamish’s playing has carried the torch for a revival of interest in bellows-blown pipes which has seen them become commonplace on the piping and wider folk scene, compared to 30 years ago when they seemed the arcane, antiquarian interest of a few enthusiasts.
As you can hear in the interview Hamish was here in Barga to spend some time writing and preparing the re-launch of the Barga School of Scottish Music which after a gap of five years will once more take place during 2016
The first Barga School of Scottish Music Song and Dance with more than 50 students and tutors first took place in Barga in 2010 ( article here)
In 2012 it was cancelled as there were problems in sorting out the accommodation but according to Hamish for 2016 it’s all systems go once more.
The final dates have still to be fixed but it is looking as though the school will take place during the second two weeks of September 2016.
This afternoon he left Barga on his way to visiting the South of France to the establishment of Franco and Daniele Rigotti where he chooses and purchases his cane that he uses to make the reeds for his world-famous Scottish small pipes.
He is apparently the last pipe maker in the world using natural canes for his reeds, the rest of the makers having moved over to the far easier to find, use and play, synthetic reeds.
Hamish’s first public performance of the Barga bells back in 2008 ( article here )