Wingates Band

Folk & Brass
Westhoughton Legends
Christmas Concert

Westhoughton's Famed Musical Ensembles Join Forces for Christmas

Tickets have now gone on sale for one of the most popular annual concerts on the calendar of the Bolton music scene. For the 15th consecutive year, Westhoughton's two famous musical ensembles, the internationally-renowned Wingates Band, and the enduringly-popular folk group, The Houghton Weavers, will be performing their traditional festive concert, Christmas Folk and Brass, at Bolton's Victoria Hall on Saturday, 12 December (7:30 pm).

Over the years, successive concerts in this series have become ever more popular, and another bumper audience is anticipated, eager to enjoy a great evening of music and mirth, which heralds the advent of the festive season.

The joint concert will be the climax of a particularly successful and memorable year for the two ensembles, as both Wingates and the Weavers have been commemorating special milestones throughout 2015. Having been formed in humble fashion in Westhoughton in 1975, the folk group have been celebrating their 40th Anniversary, with their four decades of unremitting success having embraced their own series on both television and radio, as well as performing regularly throughout the length and breadth of the land. The group has enjoyed its busiest year yet, having played a record number of gigs.

Wingates Band celebratory CD - 100 years of recordings featuring old favourites and 2 newly commissioned pieces For Wingates, the current year has seen the band reach a particularly notable milestone, namely that of 100 years of recording their music, a landmark previously reached by only three brass bands in the world. This achievement has been celebrated with the launch of two commemorative souvenir items, a new CD album, and a fully illustrated brochure/discography, both carrying the label 'Sounds of a Century', with the latter chronicling the full story of Wingates recordings spanning the century since the first shellac discs were made during the early months of World War I.