Thomas Champagne
- Instruments : Alto saxophone, Tenor saxophone, Soprano saxophone
- Date of birth : 07/07/1978 - Bruxelles
Thomas Champagne discovered jazz at the age of 15 with Nathalie Loriers and Fabien Degryse. He studied with Jeroen Van Herzeele and Steve Houben. He also took lessons with Pierre Vaiana, Bart Defoort, Laurent Blondiau, and more recently with Ellery Eskelin, Lucas Pino or Ralph Alessi.
From 2001, Thomas Champagne traveled across Belgium with his Trio during 12 years. After a first album in 2008 for Igloo label (Charon's Boat), Thomas Champagne Trio celebrates a decade of music with special guests (10 Years Project in 2011) and plays in Nicolas Bedos' play, "Promenade de santé " with Tania Garbarsky and Charlie Dupont (2013-2014).
In 2009, Thomas started with double bass player Nicholas Yates the hard bop quintet The Sidewinders ("A Little Busy" - Igloo Records - 2012). He also played and arranged for the Brazilian pop/rock septet UTZ (project of singer and guitarist Renato Baccarat).
Thomas participated in 2014 in the magnificent Al Manara project, a creation which associates Belgian and Palestinian musicians, around Ramzi Aburedwan and Éloi Baudimont, on texts by Mahmoud Darwich (concerts in Tunisia, Palestine, Belgium, France and Spain).
The same year, he set up with Michel Mainil the project Kind of Blue Tribute, a tribute to Miles Davis' mythical album.
The beginning of 2014 was also the birth of the quartet Thomas Champagne Random House. This group represents a new turn and a new aesthetic.
In April 2016, Nicholas Yates and Thomas Champagne took advantage of a residency to set up the project GribouJazz, jazz told to children, a jazz quartet around animated illustrations. The same year, UTZ, which became an Octet, released its second album and won the Sabam Award in World Music (concerts in Esperanzah, Sfinks, ...).
Thomas Champagne is also invited by Ramzi Aburedwan to participate in the creation for the opening of the Sacred Music Festival of Fes in Morocco (May 2017).
In October 2017, Random House released their debut album "Sweet Day", distributed by Igloo Records.
Spring 2019 marks the launch of an ambitious new project for the quartet. Random House invites renowned New York trumpeter Adam O'Farrill on tour and together they record brand new repertoire. The album "Tide" is released in June 2021. The Quintet is selected for the Belgian Jazz Meeting in 2022 and they have recorded their second album "Keep it Up" which will be released in Autumn 2024.
Other projects also emerged in 2020: Desafinado, a tribute to the great names of bossa nova (Eve Beuvens, Boris Schmidt and Jan de Haas), and Parker's Mood, a quartet around the repertoire of Jazz legend Charlie Parker for the 100th anniversary of his birth (Victor Da Costa, Victor Foulon and Armando Luongo).
In 2023, Thomas performs as a soloist with the Bruocsella Symphony Orchestra. He performs the Cyber Bird Concerto (Takashi Yoshimatsu).
Alongside his projects, Thomas also participates in several projects that mix the arts: composition of music for short films, collaboration with theater and dance. He also teaches at the Gaume Jazz Festival course since 2009, at the British School of Brussels and is curator of the ATOMIUM Jazz concerts.
