Allan MacDonald, coming from one of Scotland's most famous piping families, is one of three piping brothers, all of whom have performed at the William Kennedy Festival and who have established reputations in Scottish music.

Allan hails from the Gaelic-speaking community of Glenuig, Moidart in the Western Highlands and has family connections with South Uist, that great centre of Gaelic music and song. He is a most versatile musician and like his counterpart here, the late Séamus Ennis, he is an exponent of everything Gaelic from the instrumental to the vocal tradition.

He has done extensive research on Piobaireachd, tracing its past close affinity with the rhythms of the Gaelic language, and gave the first William Kennedy lecture in 1994 on this topic.

Allan has been playing from the age of nine and like his other brothers, has won major awards for his piping. He currently lectures on the Scottish Traditional Music degree course in Glasgow and prior to this lectured on Gaelic in Edinburgh University. Allan has published a collection of pipe music and his most recent recording features him playing small pipes, highland pipes and Gaelic singing.