Starting with a handful of wind instruments and conducted by Clarence Adoo, this group grew into the Silver Wind Band and George Parnaby took over as conductor.

Clarence Adoo with some of the original trumpet and sax players on the concourse of The Sage.
Concourse Dec 2009

The now defunct Silver Programme at The Sage provided the band with a rehearsal room and a one hour weekly session. An hour became an hour and a half, and then 2 hours. We volunteered extra subs to buy music and started to perform in public spaces. George gave his time at no extra charge. Then the pandemic arrived and we came to an abrupt stop. The Silver Programme ceased to exist.

George Parnaby takes rehearsal for fifteen wind players at The Sage.
The Sage November 2015

When COVID regulations allowed we looked for somewhere to meet as we could not afford the room hire charge at the Sage. We had to support ourselves and our numbers were low.

Whitehall Road Methodist Church came to our rescue with their very reasonable hall hire charges.

Less than a dozen players at Beamish Band Hall.
Attempting post COVID normality at Beamish.

Due to ill health George was no longer able to conduct us so having found a new home we then needed a new conductor. Luckily for us Tony Hedley had some spare time which needed filling and he offered to conduct us. Tony, like George, is a professional musician with many years experience, great musical knowledge and a keen supporter of amateur players.

Tony Hedley takes a rehearsal at Whitehall Methodist Church Hall.
Whitehall Rehearsal

In recognition of the very warm welcome extended by Whitehall Methodist Church we re-named ourselves The Whitehall Concert Band. Our numbers started to grow and we have more than doubled in size.

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