BTM is 50!! 1972-2022 – tremendous example of what music brings to communities
03.10.22
For 50 years, BTM has provided the local communities in and around the Bedwas, Trethomas, Machen and wider Caerphilly area with a focal point for generations of youngsters and older citizens to learn to play musical instruments and to experience what it’s like to perform live with other musicians. The band takes complete beginners, having them join weekly sessions where they are soon playing with other members of the Junior Band. Steady progression is then provided into BTM Next Generation (the youth Band), then into the famed Senior Band and even on to the National Youth Brass Band of Wales, of which players from BTM were some of its founding members.
BTM Senior Band has played and competed at the highest levels in the UK and abroad. The band has performed at the Royal Albert Hall in London, the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff for the Rugby Internationals and was the first brass band to play at the newly-opened Wales Millennium Centre in 2004. This is Wales’s premier cultural centre for the performing arts, a centre-piece of the Cardiff Bay development, home to the Welsh National Opera and a prestige venue for national and international artists and shows.
The band’s efforts in establishing a culture of music-making in the communities has been reciprocated with loyal support from local people and businesses, the Bedwas, Trethomas and Machen Community Council and the Caerphilly Country Borough Council. All have contributed in time and treasure over the years as BTM's achievements in the world of top-flight musical performance brought ever-greater pride to the villages. All these groups have long recognised the benefits BTM has provided through engaging young people in particular in the fun and disciplines of learning and playing music with others.
The Hutcherson family is especially held in great affection and esteem due to their dedication being a key driving force in all that BTM has achieved and brought to the local communities over the last half-century.
As a mark of the band’s status, one of the Buffet Crampon Group’s leading artists, Tom Hutchinson, played his Besson cornet as Guest Soloist at BTM’s Celebration Concert. Hutchinson (not to be confused with Hutcherson!) is Principal Cornet with the world-famous Cory Band. Cory has long been pre-eminent in the national and international brass band world, winning numerous British Open, Brass in Concert Championship, National and European titles repeatedly and achieving World’s No. 1 ranked brass band for a consecutive and unprecedented ten years! Tom is also Professor of Cornet at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Cornet tutor for the National Youth Brass Band of Wales and Cornet Tutor for the National Children’s Brass Band of Great Britain.
Also in attendance at the BTM's Anniversary Concert were the Mayor of Caerphilly, Councillor Elizabeth M. Aldworth, and the constituency's Member of Parliament, Wayne David.
Family members from those who work at The Trust Network have been among the scores of people who have benefited from all that BTM has brought to the musical life of our local villages and towns. We thank the band and its Society for all its fantastic efforts in doing so, and wish them another 50 years of great success!!