Thomas Burge
Trombone
Tom Burge is a trombonist with the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra. A native of Australia, he has performed with most of the Australian professional orchestras. A Queen Elizabeth II Award winner, Burge earned his master's degree in New York City at the Juilliard School. Here in the United States, Burge has performed with the Los Angeles and New York Philharmonics, the Cleveland Orchestra, and the symphony orchestras in Cincinnati, Atlanta, Baltimore, Grant Park, Charleston, Jacksonville, Augusta, as well as all orchestras in the state of North Carolina.
Burge previously was the Lecturer in Trombone and Brass Chair at the Canberra School of Music, Australian National University, and is currently a faculty member of the North Carolina Youth Orchestra. He has taught at many Universities and Colleges around NC, and has given master classes, clinics, and recitals internationally. His students are teachers and orchestral performers around the globe.
In the US, he has appeared as a guest clinician and soloist at Juilliard, UCLA, California State University in Northridge, UNC Chapel Hill, UNC School of the Arts, UNC Charlotte, UNC Pembroke, Davidson College, Appalachian State University, Ouachita Baptist University, Winthrop University, Methodist University NC, and Gardner Webb University. He has presented masterclasses internationally at Griffith and Sydney Conservatoriums, Canberra School of Music, and the Universidad de Chile in Santiago. Internationally, Burge has also appeared at the Spoleto Festival USA, the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan, and has been a frequent presenter at International Tuba and Euphonium Conferences, International Trombone Festivals, and the American Trombone Workshops.
In 2025, Burge was elected to the ICSOM National Governing Board as a Member at Large. He enjoys the connection with his colleagues around the country, and the remarkable support of global musicians.
Do you have any pre-performance rituals?
I arrive early (among the earliest) to have time to shake off the ephemeral aspects of my day and enter the psyche of a professional orchestral artist. At this point, it ceases to be about me and becomes more about how I support the team. It's an awesome responsibility because I must earn the right to make music with the CSO each time I take the stage.
If someone were coming to their first Charlotte Symphony concert, what would you tell them?
Be bold — take any preconceived expectations you might have of what this is going to be and liberate yourself from them for a few hours. Not knowing what might happen tonight is okay.
What do you hope audiences feel during a performance?
How music affects each of us is so intensely personal that I can't really say where it should take you. The beauty of music is that performers don't "decide" what needs to be felt, but offer a canvas for you to feel whatever your body tells you it needs — a bit like unlocking a vault. I hope you'll embrace it — set your spirit free, and feel all the feels — you know, just kind of see where it takes you.
