- John Bergamo
John Bergamo (b.
May 28 1940 ,Englewood, New Jersey ) is an American percussionist and composer. Since 1970 he has been the coordinator of the percussion department at theCalifornia Institute of the Arts .He studied Carnatic percussion with
T. Ranganathan , and composition withMichael Colgrass . He plays both Western drum set and percussion as well as a wide variety of non-Western percussion instruments, includingtabla . In 1979 he became perhaps the first Westerner to study the "thavil " inChennai ,India .Over the course of his career, he has performed with
Frank Zappa , Nexus,Dave Liebman ,Ali Akbar Khan ,Lou Harrison ,Malcolm Goldstein ,Mickey Hart ,Emil Richards , Shadowfax,L. Shankar ,Glen Velez , Repercussion Unit,Lukas Foss ,Gunther Schuller ,Charles Wuorinen (The Group for Contemporary Music atColumbia University ),Shakti with John McLaughlin,Trichy Sankaran , andSteve Gadd , and participated in the "World Drums" performance atEXPO 86 .In addition, he has performed on the soundtracks of a number of
Hollywood films, including "Act of Violence", "Altered States", "Bad News Bears go to Japan", "Chapter Two", "Crossroads", "The Exorcist II", "The Heretic", "Island of Dr. Moreau" (1996), "L.A. Story", "National LAmpoon's Class Reunion", "Perfect Weapon", "Popeye", "The Possessed", "Project X", "A Reflection of Fear", "The Scarecrow Sniper", "Tarzan the Ape Man", and "Who's Harry Crumb".His music is published by
Smith Publications .Discography
*1977 - Zappa, Frank. "Zappa in New York". Barking Pumpkin.
*1986 - Bergamo, John. "On the Edge". CD. Cologne, Germany: CMP Records.
*1990 - Harrison, Lou. "Music for Guitar and Percussion". [Netherlands] : Etcetera; N [ew] Y [ork] : Dist. by Qualiton Imports. (John Bergamo, conducts the Cal Arts Percussion Ensemble in the first work, "Canticle" no. 3.)Filmography
*1987 - "World Drums". Directed by Niv Fichman. Produced by Rhombus Media.
*1990 - Bergamo, John. "The Art & Joy of Hand Drumming". Directed by Toby Keeler. Brattleboro, Vermont: Interworld Music Associates.External links
* [http://www.talmala-bergamo.com/ John Bergamo official site]
* [http://music.calarts.edu/faculty/jbergamo.html John Bergamo faculty page] at California Institute of the Arts site
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