The BC Pipers’ Association is excited to announce that the Boney Music Memorial Invitational will be streamed online here. The event will be held tomorrow, February 24, at 7PM PST at the Halpern Centre at Simon Fraser University’s Burnaby campus.
All profits from the event will be donated to the BC Cancer Foundation. It is our hope that online viewers will also contribute to this cause via the ‘donate’ button on the stream. It is also our hope that as many people will attend the event in person as possible and that the live stream will not be a deterrent for our audience.
The Boney Music Memorial Invitational is one of the BC Pipers’ Association’s highlight events of the year and will feature the top 5 finishers from the 2017 Open Piping Grand Aggregate standings.
“We are very fortunate to be able to showcase this high level of talent in one evening,” says BC Pipers’ Association President, Rob MacNeil. “It is an honour to continue Andrew Bonar’s legacy by hosting an event that lives up to the standards he brought to and sought from our piping community.”
Andrew Bonar, BCPA Life Member and longtime BCPA Open Piping competitor, started the event in 2016 after being diagnosed with brain cancer. Andrew passed away in October 2017 after a hard-fought battle with the disease.
“His goal was to create an event that engaged and captivated the audience and most importantly to direct the piping world toward a mission of using their music to support charitable causes – and in the past two years, this contest certainly has achieved those aims,” MacNeil continued. “Boney’s idea was to create unique and fun tune requirements so competitors can play music that is not often heard in solo piping contests. In turn, he hoped these performances would inspire the audience to contribute to the ultimate goal of conquering brain cancer.”
This year, competitors are required to play at least one tune composed by Andrew Bonar himself (to be played at the start of the performance), the ground of a piobaireachd, at least two ‘two-parted’ strathspeys, at least one ‘four-parted’ 4/4 march, and at least one tune in 9/8 time. Each competitor has 20 minutes to perform, which also includes the time they are allotted to tune.
Let us know you are coming on our Facebook Event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/138962066907369/
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