On Saturday evening April 25th, we took to the floor and stage of the hi-tech Bridge Church in Bolton for our 2026 Spring Concert and, for the fourth year in a row at The Bridge, managed to completely fill its theatre.

Our varied programme once again featured nearly twenty pieces, of which half we were performing for the first time as we do in all of our major concerts. There was hopefully something for everyone present in the audience with our programme including Prismatic Light, Punchinello, Army of The Nile, Mack and Mabel, Anything Goes and All In The April Evening from established brass band repertoire.

Our soloist was 18 year old Principal Euphonium Marcus Rowbotham playing the Matt Monro and Frank Sinatra hit Portrait of My Love.

We featured two songs by Genesis (Afterglow and Turn It On Again), the stunning Nelson Riddle arrangement of Someone To Watch Over Me, John Rutter’s The Lord Bless You And Keep You, Mariah Carey’s version of I’ll Be There, A Million Dreams from The Greatest Showman, the Art Dedrick arrangement of Stardust and Livin’ On A Prayer by Bon Jovi, but the highlight of the concert was our first ever performance of highlights from Miss Saigon. 

Our loyal audience enjoyed another very successful Eagley visit and, as ever, our combined Eagley Band, Community Choir and Community Wind Band were all conducted by MD Chris Wormald who introduced the evening’s pieces. Our Principal Cornet Lynsey Hayes also treated the audience to a few bars of Nessun Dorma as it was exactly 100 years to the very evening, April 25th 1926, when Nessun Dorma was given its first ever performance in the opera Turandot.

We decided some time ago to perform the whole piece in our Summer Concert at Bolton Parish Church on Saturday July 4th as this Summer is the World Cup, and ever since 1990, Nessun Dorma is particularly associated with the tournament.