what we do

At the Pibroch Network we have a vision: 

A world in which pibroch features in mainstream education and performance, and is valued internationally for its positive contribution to cultural life and wellbeing.

We imagine a future in which most people have had a positive experience of pibroch; in which researching the most prestigious Scottish Gaelic music is easy and encouraged; in which performers and professors of this craft enjoy dignified careers; and in which the world of pibroch exhibits vibrant diversity, open to new ideas, respectful of evidence, and grateful for a lineage that stretches into prehistory.

And we have a mission: 

To make it easy for people to discover, learn, teach, and research pibroch, building pathways to deeper understanding and wider access. 

We do this by gathering together and making accessible pibroch’s earliest primary sources and making them easy to find, contextualize, explore and digest. We aim to give people of all ages and backgrounds the opportunity to learn about pibroch’s stories, composers, places, terms, sources, musical variety and fluidity.  We show how pibroch is sung, and why it is important to do so. We work to identify and fill the gaps, connect sources and pipers with research, facilitate informed discussion, seek out new partnerships with diverse insights, and add new material (such as audio for Gaelic pronunciation and musical illustrations by inspiring players).

With an ear to the past and an eye to the future, we also collaborate with other organisations to further public appreciation of pibroch and cultivate new musical voices in its interpretation and composition. 

Our Long-Term Objectives  

Outreach: Schoolchildren encounter pibroch in the classroom, eliciting a WOW experience; the connections between places and pibrochs are known to locals and discovered by visitors, enriching cultural life.  

Listeners: Players are booked by music festivals and concert halls regularly; several YouTube videos of pibroch have over a million views.

Commissioning: New pibrochs and new ways of presenting old pibrochs are commissioned annually and toured internationally, keeping this cultural inheritance vibrant and engaging.

Competitions: Research and tradition are not in silos but integrated; the existing infrastructure of solo competitions invigorates the study and practice of pibroch because curiosity and courage are incentivised.

Conservatoires: It is possible to study the canntaireachd and performance of pibroch in several Higher Education institutions globally: pibroch exists inside rather than outside prestigious musical establishments.