A BRASS band musician from North Tawton has had an exciting year winning major contests with the number one ranked best brass band in the world.

Emily Quick, 19, was selected in July to play with the Cory Band, based in Treorchy in the Welsh Valleys, not far from where she is studying orchestral percussion at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff.

Having played from the age of ten for the Hatherleigh Silver Band and then Bodmin Town Band, down-to-earth Emily was already a star on the brass band youth scene, as chief percussionist for the National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain.

Even so, she hesitated when she saw the percussionist vacancy advertised for the Cory Band.

‘I mentioned it to mum and dad and ummed and ahhed for ages,’ she says. ‘Then I thought I’ve got nothing to lose if I audition. I’d actually played with them a little bit before, when I was with the Bodmin Town Band, so I knew some of the people.’

She duly auditioned with Cory Band musical director Philip Harper.

‘I prepared a piece for each instrument – the timpani, vibraphone and drum kit – and then I went to a rehearsal. He rang me the next morning so early he woke me up to say that I had got in.’

Cory regularly wins both UK and international brass band competitions and performs a wide repertoire of music at home and abroad to a professional standard.

Emily’s first major contest with the band was the British Open in Birmingham, which the band won. She is one of four percussionists in the Cory Band.

They also won the National Championships at the Royal Albert Hall in London in October and the Brass in Concert Championships in Gateshead in November.

It has provided a busy autumn for Emily and the Cory Band, as they also went on tour to the US in October, visiting New York and Washington.

‘It has been so good,’ said Emily. ‘The standard is so high and there is no room for error but obviously the musical director appreciates the young people still in music colleges and he just encourages you. Everyone does in fact and everyone gives their all.

After an eventful year, she has been home over Christmas with her family in North Tawton.

‘I rarely get weekends off to be honest and I have been trying to get a break from playing in the holidays but I did go with mum and dad to a band rehearsal the other night,’ she said. ‘I’m setting up my xylophone now.’

Emily plays a whole range of brass percussion instruments, including the tubular bells and xylophone, cymbals, glockenspiel, drum kit and castanets.

Her family are all brass band players. Dad Mark plays the tuba, mum Marian the cornet and sister Jasmine the trombone with Bodmin Town Band.

Mark said: ‘The Cory Band is the pinnacle of brass band playing. It is like playing for the best football team. They’ve recently been on tour in America where she played with the Salvation Army’s New York Staff Band and they are off to the Lithuania in April for the European Championships.

‘Playing with them is giving Emily an amazing experience which is not something money can buy.'