Artist Focus: Tom

In the run up to A celebration of Cuban music at The Jazz Cafe featuring Diáspora 12-piece band on 4th September, we're running an artist focus on the players joining us for the night.

A small child’s imagination is easily captivated, and for Tom it was the sonorous colours of the brass on the many CDs that his parents used to play that got him excited every time. With an ancestry of brass-banders it was in the blood, and seeing bands playing around Frampton Cotterell was what made him say, “when I grow up, I want to play the trumpet." Tom quickly progressed and was soon playing in a variety of brass bands, jazz bands and orchestras, and in 2008-2009 he took up a place with National Youth Wind Ensemble of Great Britain. He was later granted a place at Wells Cathedral School where he played trumpet and sang with the big band, and was provided with an unsurpassed wealth of experience in all styles of music including solo, orchestral, brass chamber music, lead trumpet, jazz trumpet and historical performance. His playing took him all around the UK and even as far afield as Hong Kong and Malaysia.

In 2009 and 2010 he joined The Company Music Theatre - an acclaimed youth music theatre company based in Manchester, and has recently completed his degree at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, which culminated in his final recital: Brandenburg to Broadway. A true all-rounder, he has performed extensively on numerous denominations of the trumpet, with barely a single genre forgotten, contributed to the lead lines in the upcoming Diáspora album. To add to his portfolio, Tom is an avid classical singer, performing professionally around London in choirs and as a soloist.