MUSIC FACULTY
MUSIC FACULTY
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In a career that spans 5 decades, Tom Bergeron has played in just about every situation one might reasonably expect of a saxophonist. He has performed throughout the United States, and in Europe and Central America; and has appeared with internationally-renowned artists such as Ella Fitzgerald, Hal Blaine, Anthony Braxton, Robert Cray, Natalie Cole, Myron Florin, Vinnie Golia, Dick Hyman, Oliver Lake, Glen Moore, Bernadette Peters, Bobby Shew, The Fifth Dimension, The Temptations, Guy Lombardo’s Royal Canadiens, and Marin Alsop’s String Fever. He has premiered dozens of new concert works for the saxophone, and is widely recognized as one of the world’s foremost authorities on multiphonics, the esoteric technique of producing several notes at once on the saxophone. He began his musical journey as a multi-instrumentalist in his native New England, studying piano and music theory with Roland Belisle, who learned stride piano from Fats Waller. In the late 60s, Tom met the legendary concert saxophonist and teacher Donald Sinta, with whom he studied while in high school and graduate school. Upon moving to Oregon in 1981, Tom studied with J. Robert Moore, who was among the last generation of students of Marcel Mule, the French Godfather of the saxophone. As a composer, Tom draws inspiration from Western European concert music and the jazz heritage, as well as from music traditions from around the world. In the 1980s, he studied African marimba with the late Zimbabwean master-percussionist Dumisani Maraire; more recent explorations have taken him to Brazil, Costa Rica and Poland. Bergeron performs and records with Whirled News, Cathexis Orchestra, Western Rebellion, Labirynt, Hagberg/Bergeron Quartet, Mason Williams & Friends, and Gordon Lee's Gleeful Big Band. Over the years, he has played saxophone with the Portland Chamber Orchestra, Portland Center Stage, Third Angle New Music Ensemble, Pittsburg New Music Ensemble, Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, Oregon Bach Festival, Oregon Festival of American Music, Oregon Coast Music Festival, Cascade Festival of Music, Kansas City Symphony, Sacramento Symphony, Eugene Symphony, Newport Symphony, and Grande Ronde Symphony. His first orchestral experience was as second bassoonist with the NH Philharmonic in the late 1960s. When he's not teaching or making music, Tom can be found swimming in the creek behind his house in the foothills of Oregon's Coast Range.
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PODCASTS
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DISCOGRAPHY 2008 Whirled News: Bugbear 2007 Labirynt: Motion Tissue
2007 Western Hemisphere Orchestra: Henry Darger 2006 Cathexis Orchestra: Dead Men (Are Heavier than Broken Hearts) 2006 Labirynt: Exit 2005 Mason Williams & Zoe McCulloch: Electrical Gas 2005 Christopher Woitach: Family 2005 Clovis: Clovis 2004 Hagberg/Bergeron Quartet: Jobim Now 2004 Western Rebellion: Western Rebellion 2004 Gordon Lee: Flying Dream 2004 The Tone Sharks: Morsels 2002 The Tone Sharks: Intention 2001 Whirled Jazz: Mukilteo 2001 Dave Leslie: The Brim 2000 The Tone Sharks: Chunks of Zen 2000 America's Millennium Tribute to Adolphe Sax: Volume III 2000 Richard Raven Williams: The Wanderer
1999 The Tone Sharks: Cave Sleepers 1999 Valerie Brown: Uneasy Sleep 1998 Don Latarski & Rue de Blues: Rue Two 1998 The Tone Sharks: ww.shark 1998 Labirynt: Labirynt 1998 Dave Storrs and the Tone Sharks: Ten Stories 1997 Tom Bergeron & Whirled Jazz: Leopard's Tale 1996 Tom Bergeron: Saxophone Alone 1991 Anthony Braxton & the Northwest Creative Orchestra: Eugene (1989)
1982 Laura Clayton: Simichai-Ya! 1980 Betty Johnson & Yvonne Cheek Johnson: Moving Makes Me Magic 1978 The First Few: Could It Be? |
PRESS QUOTES "Tom Bergeron stunned the audience...with some brilliant alto saxophone improvisation." "Tom Bergeron brought the house down with a stunning performance." "Tom Bergeron's sax is so sweet your blood sugar soars." "Bergeron is a virtuosic saxophonist....He is a master of classical, improvisatory, avant garde, and jazz performance." "The climax of the evening [was] Bergeron's rapturous and brilliant work." "Bergeron, like Osby, produces clear, precise lines." "Bergeron's compositions move like a well-plotted story." "Ferociously talented, pyrotechnically gifted." "Bergeron's rounded tone is so smooth, his dynamic control so exquisite that the sound envelops you like a cool flannel sheet." |
Western Oregon University
Department of Music, Smith Hall 124
Monmouth, OR 97361
phone: (503) 838-8802
e-mail: berge@wou.edu
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