Lorne MacDougall is one of Scotland’s leading young pipers. Lorne was born and brought up in Carradale, in the piping stronghold of Kintyre. He began to learn the pipes with Tony Wilson, the pipe major of Campbeltown Pipe Band at the time of the band’s appearance on Paul McCartney’s number one hit Mull of Kintyre, and was a founder member of the prize-winning Kintyre Schools Pipe Band on its formation in 1999.
On leaving school, Lorne studied for a BA in Scottish Music at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow, graduating with honours in 2005, one of the first graduates on the RSAMD’s piping course. He has played in Grade 1 pipe bands at world championship level since joining the David Urquhart Travel Pipe Band while still at school and has also played with Glasgow Pipes and Drums and the Scottish Power Pipe Band, providing the musical arrangements for the latter competition and concert repertoire in 2005.
A versatile musician who plays Highland bagpipes, smallpipes, Border pipes, whistles, piano and keyboards, Lorne features with the Red Hot Chilli Pipers, who won BBC Television’s “When Will I Be Famous?” in 2007 and produced the band’s debut CD, which was one of 2007’s biggest selling traditional music albums as well as having a heavy involvement with their 2007 release “Bagrock to the Masses”. He has toured Scotland and Europe with folk band Canterach and Brian McNeill’s Back of the North Wind “Baltic tae Byzantium” production and appeared at festivals including Lorient, Aviles, Mull of Kintyre, Jura, and Orkney Folk Festival.
Lorne has made frequent radio appearances, including live sessions on BBC Radio Scotland’s Travelling Folk, A Bit of a Blow and Pipeline, and as a session musician has appeared on albums including Ross Kennedy’s "Scottish Voice and Acoustic Guitar" and Norman MacKay’s “The Big Squeeze”. He continues to keep busy with live performances and sessions, particularly with Canterach and occasionally the Red Hot Chilli Pipers as both arranger and piper, and when not playing music he is the producer of the highly popular internet radio show PlanetPipe.