News

10th Festival
The 10th Festival of The International Guild of Town Pipers will be held in ‘s Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands on the 6th, 7th & 8th of September 2024. More details on the Festivals page.

Trustee Search
The IGTP is seeking to recruit a new Trustee as one of the current ones wishes to stand down after the festival in Worcester next May after sixteen years. The Trustees are effectively the managing committee of the Guild, responsible for the activities specified in the Trust Deed. The charity’s main activity is the support and management of a website to advance the education for the public benefit in early music, particularly in the music and history of town bands or Waits. The charity also organises and supports workshops, festivals and performance of early music relevant to Waits bands. Please get in touch with us if you are interested.

The Ninth International Festival of the International Guild of Town Pipers, May 2022
This took place on May 13th to 15th this year in the fair, historic and musical city of Worcester, home of Thomas Tomkins and, more recently, Edward Elgar. It was a resounding success. Photos of the Festival will appear soon.

York Mystery Plays in 2022
We now have dates for the street performances of the York Mystery Plays in 2022 – June 19th and 26th. If your waits would be interested in participating, put the dates in your diary. We’ll be calling for interest and availability shortly. Last time we managed to fit all interested visiting bands in on one of the two weekends so we hope to do the same again next year.

A new and important publication by our IGTP Patron
Richard Rastall, ‘Civic Minstrels in Late Medieval England: New Light on Duties and Careers’. Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle 52 (2021), 183-218.

Musical anniversaries in 2022
It’s time to think about themes for performances on the anniversaries of composers in 2022. A few that come to mind are the 450th anniversaries of the births of Erasmus Widmann, Alfonso Ferrabosco II and Moritz Landgrave of Hessen and the 400th anniversary of the birth of Matthew Locke.

Performance listings and news items
The Concerts and Events page is normally available for listing public events by member bands for up to six months ahead. If there are corrections or additions to performances by your member band are not up to date, email details to [email protected]. Event listings are, after all, one of the benefits of membership. The Latest News section and IGTP Facebook Page are also available if your member band has anything particularly newsworthy.

Significant days each year for early musicians
There are two days every year when we early musicians should get out and about and perform. The first of these is International Bagpipe Day on March 10th. Then comes “European Day of Early Music” on March 21st. The title is self-explanatory. The third is “Uncommon Musical Instrument Appreciation Day” on July 31st and, let’s face it, nobody plays more uncommon musical instruments than early musicians. Every July 31st we should be out there showing the world our shawms, curtals, cornetts, racketts, sordunes, gemshorns, non-Scottish bagpipes, bray harps, theorboes, opharions, bandoras, citterns, gitterns, hurdy-gurdies, rebecs, tromba marinas, lirones etc. and demonstrating to everyone what a rich spectrum of sounds have been lost to the contemporary music world.