Happy New Year!

Happy New Year and best wishes for a great 2010!  Thanks for all of your support over the past year.   It was a great year!

-some great reviews of my first solo CD, Bagpipe Revolution.  It is selling all around the world.
-another successful competition tour in Scotland, including many great solo prizes and back-to-back World Championships with the SFU Pipe Band.
-continued success of my Tune Lesson Downloads.
-my third United States Gold Medal for Piobaireachd.
-launch of PipeBandTunes.com -- the first site to offer downloads of complete pipe band music, including pipe scores, drum scores, and bass & tenor scores.
-and many more!

This year saw the huge growth in popularity of social networking sites like twitter and facebook.  As a result I didn't posted on the blog as as often this past year, but I've been very active on both of these sites.

On Facebook:

Jori Chisholm Facebook Fan Page
BagpipeLessons.com Facebook Fan Page
BagpipeLessons.com Facebook Group
Bagpipe Revolution (CD) Facebook Group
PipeBandTunes.com Facebook Group

On Twitter:
BagpipeLessons.com on Twitter
PipeBandTunes.com on Twitter

I'm working on more exciting stuff here at BagpipeLessons.com in 2010.

Cheers!

Home from Scotland!

I just returned home from another trip to Scotland. What a month it has been! This year I posted regular updates of my travels and competitions on twitter (twitter.com/bagpipelessons).

I'll be posting more photos, stories, and details, but here are some of the highlights!

-1st Place Open 'A' Strathspey & Reel Cowal Highland Gathering (The McCallum Challenge Trophy) [first American Winner]
-1st Place Open Piobaireachd at Birnam Highland Games [two-time winner]
-1st Place Open Strathspey & Reel at Birnam Highland Games [three-time winner]
-1st Place Overall Most Points at Birnam Highland Games (The Sinagoca Cup) [three-time winner]
-Best Dressed Piper at the Cowal Highland Gathering [two-time winner]

And I played with the Simon Fraser University Pipe Band winning the World Pipe Band Championships for the second time in a row! We also performed a completely sold-out concert at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall which was recorded and will be released as a CD soon.

(Thanks to Michael O'Reilly for the photo!)

WORLD CHAMPIONS 2009!

It has been a very exciting week. I traveled to Scotland with the SFU Pipe Band for two big events.

On Wednesday, we performed a sold out concert at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall. The show was a big success -- a great response from the crowd and great reviews online. The concert was recorded and will be released as a CD recording soon.

On Saturday, we played at the World Pipe Band Championships where we repeated as World Pipe Band Champions! We won both events: the MSR (March, Strathspey, and Reel) and the Medley. Our drummers won the award for best drum corps, and we won the overall title. It felt great to play well in both events and very gratifying to be rewarded with great scores from the judges (we received 5 firsts, two seconds, and one third from the 8 judges!).

The BBC provided live streaming coverage of the event so our friends and fans around the world could enjoy the big event live.

There is a ton of media coverage online. Here's some for you to enjoy.

The news story and results from Pipes|Drums.

Documentary footage of the big day by SFU's own filmmaker, Thomas Buchan:


Article and video about the band's concert and preparing for the Worlds.

Video and article with footage of the Worlds and the celebrations!

High-quality video of the World Championship winning Medley from the BBC.

Interview with Pipe Major Terry Lee on CBC's As It Happens:

News video from Canada's Global News.

Scotland's SECC TV:


Donald MacLeod's Piobaireachd Field of Gold from the Concert.