Cory man Tom joins Abertillery for annual concert
FOLLOWING Abertillery Town Band’s 4th place at the Wychavon Festival the band presented their Annual Concert at The Met Theatre on Saturday, November 12.
The concert featured Principal Tenor Horn Tracy Phillips playing A Time for Peace; John Jones, Principal Euphonium playing Watching The Wheat and Flugel Soloist John Harris playing Adagio from Concierto de Aranjuez.
The Guest Soloist was Tom Hutchinson, Principal Cornet of the World’s number one band Cory, who performed brilliantly with the band on The Paragon (Sutton), A Brown Bird Singing (Wood), Charivari (Iveson) and Mr Bojangles (Walker arr. Griffiths).
The band and audience were absolutely amazed by his sheer tone, artistry and and musicianship and were rewarded with an encore of Buglers’ Holiday which also featured the Solo Cornet Section of Dean Llewellyn, Nigel Jones, Laurence Savage, Christopher Llewellyn and Steven Woods.
The audience and band were also treated to performances from the Abertillery Youth Drama & Music Society (AYDMS) Juniors and Seniors, directed by Hannah Webley.
The AYDMS have been a community organisation in Abertillery for more than 35 years and for the last ten years have been run by Hannah, Kellan Collins and a real active committee.
There are more than 100 members and have received awards for outstanding productions including Rent, Cats, Rock of Ages and Les Miserables.
The concert was expertly guided throughout the afternoon by guest compere David Hayward and aided by the excellent visual presentation of the concert by Band Chairman, Nigel Bard.
Julie Holt, Blaenau Gwent Councillor for Abertillery & Six Bells, said: “The annual concert at The Met was an absolute joy. The band is such an asset to our town and a huge part of our very long cultural history.
“The band is on really good form at the moment and the youngsters from AYDMS were a credit to their group and their parents.
“They did us proud as always So proud of our local music groups. Long may it continue.”
Ross Leadbeater, Blaenau Gwent Councillor for Abertillery & Six Bells, added: “Fantastic concert today. Well done all.”
Just prior to the Brass in Concert competition at the Sage, Gateshead, Cory made some changes to the front row cornets.
Chris Turner returned after playing with the band from2003 to 2013 as a replacement for Dai Hale who had decided to take more of a back seat.
Dai has the unique achievement of winning three Grand Slams, one with Black Dyke in 1995 and two with Cory in 2010 and 2019.
Gareth Johnson is now assistant principal cornet and is from Durham.
He came down to Cardiff in 2014 to study at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama (RWCMD) and was tutored by Chris Turner. He started at Cory on 2nd Cornet in 2014.
All four players have a strong connection with the RWCMD with both Tom and Chris being tutors there and Owain Llestyn is a current student being tutored by Tom!
Cory are delighted to have their recording of the Welsh National Anthem played at the World Cup. What an honour!