Tom Rogerson

Tom Rogerson

Tom Rogerson is an improvising pianist and keyboardist from Suffolk, United Kingdom. He is the founder of the experimental electronic-rock band Three Trapped Tigers.

Background

Rogerson takes a classical route into music, starting with lessons and learning notation before beginning to compose in a more deliberate way. As a teenager, he studies with the composer Harrison Birtwistle while also working as a lounge pianist in a dilapidated hotel in Peterborough. He later spends time in New York playing jazz and recording with Reid Anderson of The Bad Plus.

Three Trapped Tigers

He has a successful career with Three Trapped Tigers, which he later describes as a diversion from the classical world rather than a final destination. The group is identified as an experimental electronic-rock band.

Finding Shore

Rogerson’s debut solo release is Finding Shore, a 13-track collaboration with Brian Eno. The project begins after Rogerson meets Eno outside a gig, and their conversation leads to a working process built around improvisation at the piano and manipulation of MIDI signals. Eno suggests use of a Piano Bar device, which converts piano keys into MIDI triggers through infrared beams. Rogerson and Eno do not discuss music at first; they connect over their shared roots in Suffolk, especially Woodbridge and its surrounding landscape. That local setting also informs the album.

Style and later base

Rogerson works as an ambient, experimental and electronic pianist, and he is described as living in Berlin, Germany.