Bio

Tom Bigas started his career at the age of twelve when he was recruited to play drums in his father's Greek wedding band, performing the difficult rhythms of traditional Greek music. Through this experience he quickly realized he wanted to be involved in the entertainment industry and thirty-five years later, he is still involved as a performer, educator, stage manager, audio technician, producer, studio owner and bandleader. His thirty-five years in the business has seen many successes. As an educator Tom was director of Canada’s most successful competitive indoor percussion ensembles, “Spirit Performing Youth Ensemble” which competed internationally, earning recognition as one of the innovators in the marching percussion industry. Tom received recognition from major sponsors such as the Vic Firth Corporation. He was asked to sit on the Board of Directors for the WGI organization, which governs the indoor percussion activity. This led Tom to such positions as an adjudicator for the Southern California Percussive Arts Society (S.C.P.A.S.), Ontario Drum Corps Association and the Canadian Drum Line Association.

Tom moved to Los Angeles in 1996 and become involved as an investor in “The Mint”, a blues club just outside of Hollywood where he and his partners transformed the club, not only into a environment for live music, but also a room for live recordings, installing a world- class recording studio. Tom was involved in the day-to-day operations as a promoter and engineer. During his stay in L.A. he also managed bands and taught private lessons at a high school in Anaheim.

Bigas moved backed to Canada where his focus changed from teaching and business to performing. In 1998 Tom was asked to play drums and percussion for Canadian artist “Pavlo”. He played on two of Pavlo’s albums (Fantasia and I Feel Love Again) and toured as a percussionist/drummer for Pavlo’s self-entitled first album and second album, Fantasia. This earned the band 2 gold albums and a Juno nomination. In 2002, Tom Bigas joined forces with guitarist Johannes Linstead (http://www.johanneslinstead.com/main/) and has been with him touring and recording ever since. Johannes has sold over a half million CD’s. He currently has nine albums, of which Tom Bigas recorded drum set and percussion on six of them. All albums have charted on Billboard and received many awards and accolades including a Juno nomination for the album “CafĂ© Tropical” in 2007 in the Instrumental Album of the Year category.

Tom has performed over a thousand shows in Canada and the U.S.A. and as far as Bahrain in the Middle East. Other performances including such prestigious venues as the Catalina Jazz Festival twice (Catalina Island C.A.), Kettle Moraine Jazz Festival twice (West Bend W.I.) and Anthology twice (San Diego C.A.) just to mention a few. Currently, Tom has expanded the list of artists he performs with to include award-winning multi-instrumentalist Yiannis Kapoulos (http://www.yktunes.com/) and vocalist Laura Cole, who won Best New Artist, at the 2013 Burlington Sound of Music Festival. Tom is also the head of percussion for United Alumni Drum and Bugle Corps and in 2013 -2014 instructed McMaster University Marching Band.

He is the owner of Fonic Factory Productions recording studio in Hamilton, Ontario. In May of 2015 Tom received his Honours Baccalaureate Degree in Music and is currently working on a second degree in Education at Brock University.