I grew up as an only child in a working class mill town in southern Maine. The type of community with wood-framed two story houses and woodstoves in the basement. My most vivid early memory is of sitting between the washer and dryer in my childhood basement matching pitch with the one and tapping out the inherent rhythm of the other. While my parents weren’t musical in a performative way, the stereo was always on. Music was the sonic backdrop to my life. It came as no surprise when I asked to join band in fourth grade. Even less surprising that I wanted to be a drummer. I excelled and started private lessons in the seventh grade. I taught my first private lessons to some beginning students later that year and had my first long-term paying gig playing in the pit orchestra of the local summer stock musical theater the summer after eighth grade.

In the fall of my senior year of high school, having been principal percussionist in the All-State band for several years and the drummer in the first ever All-State Jazz band, I began to wonder about college. Where do aspiring drummers go to school? Do they go to school? How do you even apply? Arghhhh. With no real college counseling happening at my high school and parents who hadn’t gone to college, I was adrift. Until I checked the mail and the newest edition of Modern Drummer magazine had a cover story about the best schools for drummers! I applied and was accepted to the top three schools but two of them were well beyond my family’s price range. I ended up 2000 miles from home at the University of North Texas, paying out-of-state tuition, which was actually more affordable than in-state tuition in Maine.

As an undergrad, I was a long-standing member of the famed One O'clock Lab Band as percussionist, recording several albums and touring in Japan, Hong Kong, and Portugal. I graduated with a BA in Jazz Performance and was offered a Teaching Fellowship in the percussion department facilitating the Afro-Cuban, Afro-Brazilian, West African, and Gamelan ensembles. I earned my Master’s degree in Ethnomusicology, Anthropology, and Documentary Film at UNT while performing extensively live and in recording studios throughout North Texas. 

After college, I was awarded an Artist in Residence teaching position at a school district outside of Boston, where I taught the beginning percussion classes, lessons for all percussionists at the high school, directed the jazz combos, and created and directed a world percussion ensemble. In the early 2000s, my wife and I relocated with our two young kids to central Maine where I was Director of Music for a local school district and Adjunct Professor of Music at the University of Maine at Augusta. 

Since 2011, I have served as Director of Percussion Studies at Temple College and Texas A&M Central Texas, and most recently served as Department Chair of Music for the past two years. In addition to my percussion teaching duties, I teach courses in American Popular Music, Ethnomusicology, Recording Technology, and Humanities. I continue to maintain an active private lesson studio, clinic Brazilian samba ensembles all over the state, and perform in and around Austin. For more information about my music projects, visit normbergeron.com.

I am now working to help aspiring high school musicians navigate their own musical journey to college. I work thoughtfully to help them find the best fit music schools and assist them with each step of the application and audition process.