Tom Bergeron
In a career that spans 5 decades, Tom Bergeron has performed throughout the United States, and in Europe, Costa Rica, and Brazil.
He has appeared with internationally-renowned artists such as Ella Fitzgerald, Hal Blaine, Anthony Braxton, Rosemary Clooney, Natalie Cole, Robert Cray, Mason Williams, Myron Florin, Vinnie Golia, Dick Hyman, Oliver Lake, Glen Moore, Bernadette Peters, Bobby Shew, The Fifth Dimension, The Temptations, Sunny Turner, Lynn Anderson, Guy Lombardo's Royal Canadians, 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.
Tom 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 1960s, 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 the jazz heritage and Western European concert music, 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. Since 2000 he has been deeply involved in playing and teaching Brazilian music, returning regularly to Brazil to study choro, samba and bossa nova.
Bergeron performs and records with Whirled News, Cathexis Orchestra, Western Rebellion, Labirynt, and the Hagberg/Bergeron Quartet. 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 1968.
When he's not making music or teaching music theory at Western Oregon University, Tom often can be found hiking and swimming in the Oregon Cascades or walking the beaches of Rio de Janeiro.
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- "Tom Bergeron stunned the audience...with some brilliant alto saxophone improvisation." -- Sue Pilla, Eclipse Jazz Newsletter (Ann Arbor, MI)
- "Tom Bergeron brought the house down with a stunning performance." -- W. Thomas Marrocco, Register-Guard (Eugene, OR)
- "Tom Bergeron's sax is so sweet your blood sugar soars." "Outrageously good." "Whatever Bergeron was paid...it wasn't enough." -- Karen Kammerer, Register-Guard (Eugene, OR)
- "Bergeron is a virtuosic saxophonist....He is a master of classical, improvisatory, avant garde, and jazz performance." -- Jason DuMars, International Saxophone Home Page
- "The climax of the evening [was] Bergeron's rapturous and brilliant work." "Tom Bergeron stole the show with his frisky Eric Dolphy-like romps." -- Mike Heffley, What's Happening (Eugene, OR)
- "Bergeron, like Osby, produces clear, precise lines." -- Mark Corroto, AllAboutJazz.com
- "Bergeron's compositions move like a well-plotted story." -- Lynn Darroch, The Oregonian
- "Ferociously talented, pyrotechnically gifted." -- Scott Williams, Sentinel and Enterprise (Fitchburg, MA)
- "Bergeron's rounded tone is so smooth, his dynamic control so exquisite that the sound envelops you like a cool flannel sheet." "Bergeron's music is an Oregon microbrew of rich flavors and rare quality." "So good he's scary." -- Brett Campbell, Eugene Weekly/What's Happening (Eugene, OR)