Sound and Sight: Tom Hutchison – Make the most of every minute

Every Thursday afternoon at the Huntsville Legion, starting at 1:00 p.m. (except for the third Thursday of every month), a group of musicians conducted by senior violinist Tom Hutchinson play a wide assortment of country Celtic favourites, and newly transcribed tunes for an enthusiastic crowd of square dancers. Some of whom, one might observe and remark, seem to be, on that particular afternoon, the happiest people in town.

From September to May, Tom leads an accomplished group of instrumentalists, including his wife Harriet on piano, through their paces, often at break-neck speeds, much to the delight of the gathered dancers. In a tradition spanning over twenty years, Tom has calmly and meticulously prepared for and gathered this diverse company of violinists, drawn from Huntsville and the surrounding area, so that folks can enjoy the communal, joyous, and inclusive camaraderie that these historic dances provide. 

With his radiant smile and gentlemanly good graces, Tom is highly respected not only for his exceptional musicianship, but his capacity to source and transcribe music from an immense library of music that spans centuries.             

Tom Hutchinson is one of those rare, accomplished individuals who has pursued life-long passions in multiple disciplines with the same ardour and devotedness he brings to his beloved violin. Even with a busy career as a high school mathematics teacher, Tom has advanced his proficiency in electronics, computer hardware and software programming, pottery, and a long-standing love for amateur Ham radio operations. Now in his eighth decade, Tom, with customary modesty, is active, energetic, and emphatically intellectually engaged. Tom is an inspiration to anyone complaining about never having enough time. Surely, for some, time is relative to their interests, hobbies, and appetite for life. 

Most of his pursuits began at a very young age. He began violin lessons at the age of seven. His grandmother played violin, and his mother was a very talented pianist. “My father, he could play one tune on the violin, a little, no one knows the name of it, but he would play it and just settled me down at bedtime, you know, he would come up and play this tune,” Tom recalls with a chuckle. 

Tom studied with a variety of music teachers, moving from Sault Ste. Marie to North Bay, and spent two seasons studying and performing with the National Youth Orchestra of Canada in 1960.

During his university studies, he put his music on hold for several years. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science in Physics from the University of Toronto. During his Master’s studies, he and his professor built an electron spin resonance machine used to study both static properties and dynamic processes in almost any system containing radicals (i.e., molecules with unpaired electrons). https://www.physics.utoronto.ca/~phy326/esr/index.htm

His attempt to further his education with a doctorate degree didn’t work out. Needing to provide for himself, he decided to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a teacher. Rather surprisingly to Tom, he was accepted immediately as a math teacher by the Toronto Board of Education and posted to Oakwood Collegiate, where he taught for one year. He then took his savings to journey internationally to New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, and East Africa. During his travels, he realized he did not have a job to return to and again applied to teach by telegram no less, again in Toronto. He was a successful educator, advancing through progressive positions for the balance of his career, teaching mathematics and physics from grades nine to 13. 

During his tenure at Vincent Massey Collegiate, Tom began to run computer labs – a new science in the late 1970s and 1980s. He retired from his teaching career at Etobicoke School of Arts.

“I’ve always had an interest in electronics ever since I built my first crystal radio set when I was in kindergarten. Around the mid-’70s, I built my first computer, a very, very small one, when the personal computers were starting to appear in electronic experimenters’ magazines. So, I built this small one, it has a memory capacity of 256 bytes.” Tom laughs at the memory. “This computer was just the start of the computer revolution, and so there’s 256 bytes of memory, and the display was, I have it in the cupboard here, it was two chips, each chip, they’re all rectangular chips, and each chip would display 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F, it’s called hexadecimal.” The COSMAC Elf, as this model was called, was an RCA 1802 microprocessor-based computer—a kind of personal computer long before such inventions became the norm.  

With his own computer, he had to learn programming, a skill he has sustained over many iterations of computer languages and platforms. He is fascinated by electronic gadgets, building all manner of devices, including a bio-feedback machine. After building his own crystal radio set, he constructed his own shortwave radio, based on an article in the ‘Book of Knowledge,’ a popular encyclopedia first published in 1912. 

Soon, with the help of a friend, he assembled a transmitter, the first of many, eventually earning his amateur radio licence, a project he maintains to this day with relish.  

He joined the Etobicoke Philharmonic Orchestra in 1976, where he played second violin, playing mainly harmony parts. Tom stayed with the orchestra until 2003. Throughout his performing career with the Philharmonic, he travelled to Vienna in Austria in 1998 and then Paris in France in 2000.

Perhaps his most enduring musical experience and lasting influence was his studies with legendary Cape Breton fiddler, Hugh Alexander “Sandy” MacIntyre. 

“I took the lessons from him every week for five years or so, and I would play with him at his favourite pub on Eglinton Avenue called the Bow and Arrow. It was all homesick Cape Breton fiddlers; they would go there and play all these pieces. It was a good experience playing with a group,” points out Tom. 

MacIntyre played his repertoire solely by ear and memory. Hutchinson took on the task of transcribing this vast catalogue of tunes by using tape recordings and painstakingly notating the songs using a variety of music-scoring software. It is a skill Tom uses constantly. Most of the players he works with sight read on stage, so Tom has to be very accurate and precise. It’s an arduous task few easily undertake.  

In 2005, two years after moving to Huntsville, Tom began his music life in Huntsville by leading the pit Orchestra at the new Algonquin Theatre for several musical productions. During that period, Tom was approached to play for the square dances held at the Huntsville Centennial Centre, now the Summit Centre. Shortly after, the dances were moved to the Legion where they have remained. 

Tom also filled the role of musical director for the Fernglen Fiddleheads, a popular fiddle collective which boasted a roster of talented fiddle players for over ten years, until they discontinued in 2020. 

One of his greatest pleasures is the pottery that he and his wife, Harriet, have created since they first met in the mid-1970s. Taking a pottery course in Montreal was part of their early courtship. As a scientist, Tom was skeptical about his abilities with the art form, but they have set up a summer pottery shack on their cottage property, where they make numerous items throughout the season, an important aspect of their lives, especially with square dances on hiatus during the warm months. 

“Life is what you make of it,” states an ancient wisdom. Tom Hutchinson is living proof that life surely is. He spends every day learning and exploring its endless new possibilities, engrossed by what each and every day might provide.  

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