Edinburgh Tradfest: Finlay MacDonald Band

“Finlay MacDonald has emerged as one of the leading lights in the current crop of young pipers with deep roots in the pipe band tradition, but grafted on to a distinctly contemporary musical sensibility to produce a compelling hybrid.” – Kenny Mathieson, The Scotsman

Finlay MacDonaldhas been at the cutting edge of piping, teaching and composing for over 20 years, gaining an international reputation as a highly skilled performer and an inspirational leader in this field. With four recorded albums, two books of music published along, touring experience across four continents with a variety of traditional music groups and competing with Scottish Power Pipe Band, he has extensive knowledge of the world of piping.

The Finlay Macdonald Band has been coming very much to the fore over the past couple of years. This is a stellar line up which includes award-winning piper Ailis Sutherland (Hecla), guitarist/piper Ali Hutton(Ross & Ali, Old Blind Dogs, Treacherous Orchestra, Tryst) and drummer Paul Jennings(Croft No 5, Treacherous Orchestra). Seen at this year’s (and last year’s) Celtic Connections the band blew us away with their upbeat and infectuous tunes getting audiences on their feet and dancing for joy

Away from performing Finlay has worked tirelessly for the past two decades to bring piping to the wider musical community through his work with Piping Live! and the National Piping Centre (he is now director of both) and the establishment of Piping Studies at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. This is a performer with a peerless piping pedigree and we are delighted to welcome him to Edinburgh Tradfest.

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