FROM masterminding the stirring sound of the pipes at last week’s Dior fashion show to organising Scotland’s major piping festival, Finlay MacDonald’s career is anything but boring.
Fresh from Dior’s star-studded event at Drummond Castle in Perthshire which attracted attention from all over the world, MacDonald took time out to tell the Sunday National how grateful he is that this year’s Piping Live! festival will go ahead in August.
“To be quite honest we are delighted the festival can happen in any form because we are seeing festivals left, right and centre that are having to stop for a year or cancel indefinitely,” he said.
“It’s heartbreaking to see so many festivals not continue but we have been lucky in terms of funders and the public still buying tickets.”
Around 30,000 people are expected at this year’s festival in Glasgow which is now in its 21st year and will feature around 700 musicians across its nine-day run at free as well as ticketed events.
As director of piping at Scotland’s National Piping Centre, it’s to be expected that a piping festival would be part of MacDonald’s remit – but Dior? Even MacDonald was slightly taken aback to be asked to enter the world of high fashion, despite being dubbed “Piper to the Stars” after playing with the likes of Bryan Adams and Primal Scream.
“I was quite surprised but I do quite a lot of different collaborations and I end up playing at gigs I never thought I would,” he said.
Yet while he is open to all kinds of events, his priority is to make sure the pipers are not being used as a gimmick, or in a tokenistic way, and this is apparent in the Dior show which can still be seen on YouTube, where the striking grounds of the castle, set off the by the sounds of the pipes, have attracted as much international attention as the Dior creations worn by the models.
The event was peppered with celebrities such as Jennifer Lawrence, Rosamund Pike, and Anya Taylor-Joy – although MacDonald confesses he didn’t have a clue who anyone was, other than composer Oliver Coates, who has worked with the likes of Massive Attack, Goldie and Radiohead and composed music for films such as Under the Skin and There Will Be Blood.
Coates created the soundscapes for the Dior show and worked with MacDonald to create a suitable atmosphere to set off the clothes.
“It was really cool to work with him as he is a highly experienced and respected composer and was totally on board with the pipes being very much embedded within the show,” said MacDonald.
“He didn’t want a traditional piece as it was about creating atmosphere and a soundscape to go along with the show because the most important part is the clothes and everything we did had to be in support of that.
“It was brilliant to see the level of production, artistic input and creativity they put into these shows and being involved in it was really cool.”
The show opened with tartan-clad models, led in by piper Brìghde Chaimbeul in an eye-catching long red dress, and builds up to a stirring parade of pipers at the end.
“They were lucky it was a beautiful night although I’m sure they had a plan B in place,” said MacDonald.
“There were a lot of celebrities there but to be honest I did not know who they were. But everyone was really open to making us feel a part of it and we had a nice wee couple of hours at the after party as well.”
Now he is looking forward to Piping Live! which will include new events as well as popular mainstays such as the Masters’ competition which is now the biggest solo competition in the world.
The number of international acts is back to pre-Covid levels and this year includes Galician piper Anxo Lorenzo, as well as pipers from Australia, New Zealand and Sweden.
The sonic week will get formally underway on Monday August 12 with the Piping Live! Big Band welcoming pipers and drummers of all ages and abilities to join the festival’s mass participation event, filling the city centre streets with music as they march from Mansfield Park in Partick to Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum.
Buchanan Street will be awash with the sound of pipes from Monday, August 12 to Thursday, August 15, with free, open-air performances by pipe bands from across the globe taking place each day.
In Glasgow’s West End, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum will host a recital by an international artist each day of the festival at 2pm, showcasing bagpiping traditions from around the world in the Centre Hall.
The week will come to a crescendo with The World Pipe Band Championships at Glasgow Green on Friday 16 and Saturday, August 17.
