The Silver Chanter MacCrimmon Memorial Piobaireachd Competition was founded in 1967 by Dame Flora MacLeod, 28th Chief of MacLeod, with John MacFadyen and Seumas MacNeill for the purpose of encouraging top class pipers to compete at the Skye Gathering. This was much needed, as the piping competitions had been waning for some years at that time. The stratagem was a success, and the piping competitions at the Games are now well attended at all levels.

The Silver Chanter is an invitational competition, but each player will have won one of the major awards for piobaireachd during the previous year. The legend of the Silver Chanter, said to have been given by a fairy to the first of the MacCrimmon pipers to MacLeod, indissolubly links the competition with the MacCrimmons. All the tunes played in the competition must be compositions of one of that famous dynasty, who are said to have been the greatest of the exponents, both players and composers, of the music of the Great Highland Bagpipe.

The competition is always held in the drawing-room of Dunvegan Castle, in Skye. In that room, which in the 19th Century was altered from being the great hall of a castle to a modern drawing-room, many of the tunes played in the competition would have had their first performances.

For the first time the Isle of Skye Piping Society has taken over the running of the competition from the John MacFadyen Trust. It is sponsored by William Grant & Sons Ltd, the distillers.

Before 2007 five pipers always competed, but this year six pipers were again invited to compete. The first to play was Simon McKerrell, winner of the Colonel Jock MacDonald Clasp, at the Skye Gathering in 2007. He was asked to play The Earl of Ross’s March, composed by Donald Mor MacCrimmon, who was piper to MacLeod from about 1620 to 1640. The next to play was Angus MacColl, who gave an excellent performance of The Lament for Mary MacLeod, the composition, it is said, of Patrick Og MacCrimmon, grandson of Donald Mor, who was hereditary piper from 1670 to 1730. Mary MacLeod, or Mairi Nighean Alasdair Ruaidh (Mary daughter of Red-haired Alasdair) as she was called, was nursemaid to several generations of MacLeod chiefs, and a very celebrated poet. She lived to a very advanced age, and the most reliable account seems to be that she lived from about 1615 to about 1705. Third to play was Niall Matheson, who played The Lament for the Duke of Hamilton, composed by Patrick Og. There is uncertainty about which Duke of Hamilton it was whose death was commemorated in this tune, but perhaps it is the one who died at the Battle of Worcester in 1651. It is an angular and surprisingly un-musical tune for so renowned a composer, and a real test of a piper’s own musicality.

During a short interval, half way through the competition, the audience was regaled to drams of either Glenfiddich or the Balvenie while taking the air outside the castle on this pleasant summer evening. We were soon driven indoors again by that scourge of the west coast, the Midge.

The fourth to perform was Roderick MacLeod, winner of the Silver Chanter in 2007, with the famous tune The Lament for Donald Duaghal MacKay, by Patrick Mor MacCrimmon, hereditary piper from 1670 to 1730. Donald Duaghal MacKay was chief of Clan MacKay and was created the first Lord Reay. He was also a noted soldier. Roderick MacLeod gave a superb performance on a beautiful sounding pipe. Next came Gordon Walker to play Patrick Mor’s Lament for the Children, a lament of unusual beauty composed on the death of seven of Mor’s eight children in a single year from a smallpox epidemic. Last to play was Glenn Brown, winner of the Dunvegan Medal in 2007. He played a fine tune, another of Donald Mor’s tunes, The King’s Taxes, as it is always called, though the Gaelic title is Mal an Righ (the King’s Rent).

The adjudicator was Iain MacFadyen, a four-time winner of the Silver Chanter between 1972 and 1985. He said this was the best Silver Chanter competition he had ever heard and with six superb performances it was not easy to pick a winner. However, he awarded the Silver Chanter to Roderick MacLeod, who won it for the fifth time.

The Silver Chanter was presented to Roderick MacLeod by Liz Maxwell, on behalf of William Grant & Sons. She also presented him with the silver miniature replica of the chanter, which is customarily given to the previous year’s winner.