Vianna Bergeron Brazilian Jazz is at the Jazz Station in Eugene
- Tom Bergeron saxophone
- Cassio Vianna piano
- Rosi Bergeron voice
- Wagner Trindade bass
- Todd Strait drums
Cassio Vianna is a composer, pianist, arranger, and educator whose work reflects the broad range of musical and cultural influences he has received during his years of training. Born and raised in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Vianna started his music studies in classical music, while developing his skills as a composer and interpreter of popular music and Brazilian jazz. Between 1993 and 1995, Vianna studied under Hungarian teacher Ian Guest, who had a great impact on his decision to pursue a career as a composer.
After this period, Vianna engaged in several recording and performing projects in the Rio de Janeiro music scene, which included a successful career with the Brazilian jazz trio Dialeto Brasileiro. Cassio Vianna holds a Bachelor of Music degree in Brazilian Popular Music from Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, a Master of Music degree in Contemporary Music from Western Oregon University, and a Doctor of Arts degree in Jazz Studies from the University of Northern Colorado. Vianna's compositions have received awards from the National Band Association, Jazz Education Network, International Society of Jazz Arrangers and Composers, and others. Vianna’s arrangements have been performed by artists such as Ernie Watts, Chris Potter, Martha Reeves, Lynn Anderson, Tony Kadleck, Danny Gottlieb, Armando Marçal, Chuck Owen's Jazz Surge Band, Clay Jenkins, and the United States Army Field Band (Jazz Ambassadors), among others. Vianna's compositional styles range from popular music and Brazilian jazz to classical chamber pieces and works for large jazz ensembles. His most recent albums include Letters to Grace: a Song Cycle (2011, Teal Creek Music), and Infância (2017, Teal Creek Music). The album Infância features Vianna's recent works for jazz orchestra, including his Brazilian Suite in Three Movements for Jazz Orchestra. Cassio Vianna's jazz big band works are published by UNC Jazz Press. Over the past 10 years, Vianna has been featured as an adjudicator, performer, and clinician at jazz festivals and conferences in the U.S., Brazil, Paraguay, and China. In 2016, he traveled to China to perform and to teach a 2-week program at the Guangxi Arts Institute in the Nanning Province. In 2017 and 2018 he was featured as a presenter and clinician at the Jazz Education Network Annual Conferences. Vianna is also a very active clinician with high school and college bands. Cassio Vianna lives with his wife Bethany and their sons Luciano, Caio, and Giovanni, in Tacoma, WA, where he is the Director of Jazz Studies and Assistant Professor of Music at Pacific Lutheran University. He performs regularly as a soloist, with the PLU Regency Jazz Ensemble, with the Tom Bergeron Brasil Band, and with Vianna Bergeron Brazilian Jazz. Cassio Vianna is a member of the Jazz Education Network (JEN), the International Society of Jazz Arrangers and Composers (ISJAC), the National Association for Music Education (NAfME), the Washington Music Educators Association (WMEA), and the Pi Kappa Lambda music honor society. He is also a BMI composer.
Tom Bergeron has performed throughout the United States, and in France, Poland, Germany, Costa Rica, and Brazil. Since 2000 Tom has been deeply involved in studying, playing, and teaching Brazilian music — returning regularly to Brazil to further explore choro, samba, bossa nova, frevo, and Brazilian jazz. This passion led to the formation in 2012 of Vianna Bergeron Brazilian Jazz, based in the Pacific Northwest, which he co-leads with Brazilian pianist Cassio Vianna. Another long-standing passion of Tom’s is free improvisation. In 1997, he was invited to join the band Labirynt, based in Katowice, Poland — a band dedicated to open-form and loosely-structured improvisation. Tom draws musical inspiration from the jazz heritage and other music traditions from around the world. In the 1980s, he studied with the late Zimbabwean master-percussionist Dumisani Maraire, and was a founding member of the Eugene, Oregon-based African marimba group Shumba. He has premiered dozens of new concert works for the saxophone, and is the author of a comprehensive book on saxophone multiphonics, the esoteric technique of producing several notes at once on the saxophone. During his varied career as a performer, Tom has performed with renown artists such as Ella Fitzgerald, Lynn Anderson, Hal Blaine, Anthony Braxton, Marvio Ciribelli, Rosemary Clooney, Natalie Cole, Robert Cray, Myron Florin, Vinnie Golia, Dick Hyman, Oliver Lake, Graham Lear, Joe Lovano, Glen Moore, Bernadette Peters, Luis Resto, Curtis Salgado, Bobby Shew, Sunny Turner, Gust Tsilis, Mason Williams, The Fifth Dimension, The Temptations, Guy Lombardo's Royal Canadians, and Marin Alsop's String Fever. Tom began his musical journey as a multi-instrumentalist in Manchester, New Hampshire, studying piano and music theory with Roland Belisle, who learned stride piano from Fats Waller. His first professional experiences date to 1968, when he joined the New Hampshire Philharmonic as a bassoonist, and he formed his first band — The Tom Bergeron Dance Band — which played music of the Great American Songbook and The Beatles for wedding receptions, anniversary parties, and corporate events throughout New Hampshire. In 1974, he co-founded the jazz collective Antares — which in the mid-1970s was a fixture on the New England jazz club and steak house circuit, and later on the college circuit in the Mid-West. Since that time, Bergeron has performed and/or recorded as a leader or sideman with many bands and ensembles, including The American Metropole Orchestra, Cathexis Orchestra, Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, Cascade Festival of Music, Eugene Symphony, Grande Ronde Symphony, Hagberg/Bergeron Quartet, Kansas City Symphony, Midnight Serenaders, Newport Symphony, Oregon Bach Festival, Oregon Coast Music Festival, Oregon Festival of American Music, Pittsburg New Music Ensemble, Portland Center Stage, Portland Chamber Orchestra, Sacramento Symphony, Third Angle New Music Ensemble, Tom Bergeron Brasil Band, Western Rebellion, Whirled Jazz, and Whirled News. Tom’s academic credentials begin with BA and BM degrees in music theory and saxophone under the tutelage of David Seiler, followed by a Master of Music degree in woodwinds with the legendary concert saxophonist and teacher Donald Sinta – who had served as a role model and mentor since Tom’s high school years. Upon moving to Oregon in 1981, Tom earned a doctorate in saxophone with another mentor and good friend, J. Robert Moore, who was among the last generation of students of Marcel Mule, the French Godfather of the classical saxophone. In the early 1970s, Tom studied improvisation with the composer Julius Eastman and the choreographer Merce Cunningham. His undergraduate recital was entirely improvised. For 28 years, Tom was Professor of Music at Western Oregon University, where he taught woodwinds, music theory, ethnomusicology, music business, songwriting, jazz, and Brazilian music — and served as both Department Head and Chair of the Creative Arts Division. He had previously taught at Eastern Oregon University, Lane Community College, the University of Oregon, Crescent Music Studios in Ann Arbor, and Groton School in Massachusetts. He and his wife, Rosi, spend most of the year in the mountains of Camp Sherman, Oregon, and the rest of the year at their home in Niterói, Brazil, across the bay from Rio de Janeiro. When not working on music projects, Tom can often be found kayaking or hiking in the Oregon Cascades, or walking the beaches of Rio.
Singer Rosi Bergeron brings to the band the sensuous sound of Brazilian Portuguese and her distinctive expression of Brasilidade (Brazilianess). Born in the “cidade maravilhosa” that is Rio de Janeiro, Rosi immersed herself throughout her childhood in music and dance at her neighborhood samba school – frequently visiting and practicing, as well, with the venerable escolas de samba Portela and Vila Isabel. Her father, a saxophonist who regularly played at block parties during Carnaval, instilled in her a love of traditionalBrazilian music – especially samba, choro, and marchinha – from a young age. As an adult, Rosi studied voice with Suely Mesquita & Sonia Joppert, and continued to feed her passion for Brazilian music, absorbing the influences of the hundreds of Brazilian musicians who constantly leave their mark on Rio’s unique and varied music scene. Her major influences include Elis Regina, Tom Jobim, Gal Costa, Paulinho da Viola, Gilberto Gil, Chico Buarque, Marisa Monte, and Maria Rita. Since coming to the US in 2009, Rosi has established herself as a dynamic interpreter of bossa nova, samba, choro, and música popular brasileira (MPB). As as singer, she strives to physically connect with the emotional resonance of a song’s lyric and melody, and to reach listeners on an intuitive level through her embodiment of those emotions. In addition to her work as a singer, Rosi owns a thriving counseling practice, which focuses on helping her patients understand and experience the connections between body, mind, and emotion – and to bring them into a healthy balance. She also treats children with autism and their families, at the Autism Treatment Center of Bend, of which she is the Director. In her free time, Rosi loves to hang out at the sun-drenched beaches of her beloved Brazil, and the lakes and rivers of Central Oregon.
Always looking up to his brother Paulo, Wagner Trindade learned the guitar basics from him as a young boy. Sharing a single guitar among them would quickly not suffice. Luck would strike when a neighbor had an old beat-up guitar with the first two strings missing. Overjoyed and creative, the brothers could now form a duet on guitar and Wagner’s newly discovered “bass.” Electric bass became an obsession when a friend gave Wagner an old VHS of Chick Corea’s Inside Out. This video would change his life trajectory from playing for fun with friends to making fun a profession on bass. Soon after that, Wagner would form the band Dialeto Brasileiro, catapulting his curiosity and passion for world culture into an international career. The band’s name translates to “Brazilian Dialect” and carries with it the reference of a melting pot of many genres performed with a distinct Brazilian sound. His album, No Caminho, features "Baía Grande" (Big Bay) and "Segunda-feira" (Monday), whose performance in the Brazilian National 2002 Cascavel Jazz Festival won Dialeto Brasileiro the prize for Best Instrumental Ensemble. Wagner has traveled and resided across the Americas, where he has performed notable venues, provided master classes, and guest lectured at various universities throughout Brazil, the U.S., and China. He feels honored to have had the opportunity to share the stage with acclaimed artists such as Lizz Wright, Allen Toussaint, Nancy King, Rique Pantoja, Giulio Figueroa, and many other distinguished friends. Wagner Trindade currently lives with his wife, Marie, in Los Angeles, is a full-time faculty instructor at Los Angeles Harbor College and an active musician throughout L.A. He holds a Master of Music degree from Western Oregon University and a Bachelor of Music degree from Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro.
Todd Strait is a jazz drummer, originally from Kansas. He began gigging while in middle school, then placed second in the 1979 Louie Bellson/Slingerland National Drum Contest when he was a junior in high school. The ensuing scholarship award allowed him to move to the East Coast, where he began playing in and around NYC. He joined Marian McPartland’s Trio in 1982 while also playing with Tal Farlow’s, Barney Kessal’s, and Bill Charlap’s trios and several big bands throughout New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. In 1986 Todd realized a long-time dream by joining Woody Herman’s Thundering Herd for a 3-month stint. In 1990 Todd returned to Kansas City, where he began several musical associations that would lead to 10 years of world-wide travel and grammy-nominated recordings. Todd traveled internationally with Kevin Mahogany from 1995-2000, and took on double duty when he joined Karrin Allyson in 1996. After Todd left Kevin’s band he joined the young pianist, Eldar, and for the next several years traveled and recorded with both Karrin’s and Eldar’s bands — resulting in two Grammy-nominated albums with Karrin and one with Eldar. The rest of Todd’s discography consists of over 100 recordings from Kansas City and both US coasts. Todd moved to Portland in 2002, playing locally as often as he could while traveling extensively. During his years in Portland he had another Grammy-nominated record with Randy Porter, John Wiitala, and Nancy King. After another return to Kansas City from 2016-2021, Todd is back in Portland, enjoying the great Northwest. In 2017, he released his debut album as a leader, "There'll Be Some Changes Made", featuring Bill Mays, Bob Bowman, and Danny Embrey.
