Most students at Chatham High School spend their afternoons scrolling through their phones, playing sports, or hanging out with their friends. For Tom “Trumpet Tom” Cook, the afternoon looks a little different – and so does his life.
A junior who has been playing trumpet for eight years, Tom recently moved to New Jersey from Florida, and the move has made a bigger difference than most people might expect. “When I was in Florida, they offered limited opportunities,” he said, referring to the music programs. “The programs up here are a lot better because of the city. My playing has improved exponentially because of being here.” He is currently part of eight ensembles, including Juilliard Pre-College and the New Jersey Youth Symphony – though he admits a lot of them are, in his words, “miscellaneous.”
Tom’s average school day is a tad different than any other kid. He wakes up at 6:50 a.m., gets through school from 8:20 to 3:00, then heads straight into rehearsals for the school musical until 6:30. After that, he drives to teach a fourth-grade trumpet player in Chatham from 7:00 to 7:45 p.m. He gets home at 8, practices trumpet and eats dinner until 10:30, and then – only then – starts his homework. He’s in bed by midnight, but asleep closer to 1 or 2.
Despite this, Tom says he hasn’t hit his wall yet. “Right now, I have not said no to any opportunities, and rarely say no to anything,” he explained. This summer, he’ll be going on tour throughout Massachusetts with the Boston University Tanglewood Institute (BUTI). Asked if he ever feels like he’s missing out on normal high school experiences, Tom said, “No, I have a lot of fun during school,” he said. “I just don’t have time to hang out with anybody in Chatham outside of school.”
Tom breaks down his trumpet playing as “20% routine, and 80% listening to players that have been influential and shown an exceptional amount of musicianship,” he said. “It is extremely motivating because I look up to them.”
Tom has been recognized as a top-five trumpet player in the nation by one competition, but he doesn’t put much thought into it. “The competition that gives that out is controversial, and their judging is highly subjective,” he said bluntly. “Nobody cares about your status, because 90% of all real-world jobs in the trumpet industry are blind – they don’t check your credentials beforehand.”
That mindset carries into how Tom thinks about college, too. For most Juniors who are going crazy over the SAT and ACT, Tom is doing quite the opposite. “I’m strictly looking for a conservatory education in music performance,” he said. “You need a 2.0, still trying to get a good score on the SAT – just not as invested academically.”
As for where Trumpet Tom wants to end up post-Chatham? He knows. His goal is to become a principal player in a symphony orchestra and then move into teaching at the college level as a professor, at whatever school will have him.
Yet don’t let any of this deceive you into thinking Tom takes anything other than the trumpet too seriously. Tom Cook is a very light-hearted, sometimes stupid, trumpet player, but his talent is undeniable, and in thirty years, we may just see Tom playing in his symphony orchestra.
