THIS weekend Colchester band Warm Winters will be flying the music flag for our town.

That's because the five-piece were the winners in our Colchester Twinning competition run in conjunction with the Colchester Arts Centre and the town's Twinning Society.

Organised to find a local rock band to play at the summer music festival in Colchester's twin town of Imola, dozens of groups put themselves forward for the accolade with the popular indie rock band being eventually picked from a panel of judges that included Gazette Arts Editor, Neil D'Arcy-Jones, Executive Producer of the Arts Centre, Stafford Glover, and Chair of the Twinning Society, Nigel Hildreth.

The idea came about when Nigel, who was the former head of music at the Sixth Form College and director of the Colne Valley Youth Orchestra, was contacted by a group of dignitaries from Imola who were after a band from Colchester to play at their festival.

Warm Winters fly out to Italy tomorrow and will play three different shows while they are there.

Guitarist and frontman Richard Williams says: "We're there for four days and are playing three times. The first one will be a stripped back acoustic performance at the opening ceremony organised by their twinning society and then we've been asked to play somewhere in the city the following night before the actual open air festival show on the Saturday in the city square."

Warm Winters were formed in 2012 out of the ashes of one of the town's most successful groups, Absent Kid.

Along with Richard, the band features two other former Absent Kid members, guitarist Kerri-Ann Butcher and bass player Mark Piggins, as well as Ben Wilkins on keyboards and drummer Sam Leppard.

With Richard now based in London, and Kerri-Ann living in South Korea for a while, the band have still managed to be a popular part of the local music scene.

As well as regular local gigs including supporting Australian outfit Scott and Charlene’s Wedding at the Colchester Arts Centre, they've also produced plenty of recordings such as the Broken Heart Still Beats EP.

But playing Imola has to be one of their all time highlights.

"It's an incredible opportunity for us," Richard adds, "and one we'd never be able to afford without the help of the Twinning Society. I do hope it will become an annual thing because this kind of thing is a great experience for any band."