François Bergeron
François Bergeron has been designing sound for Cirque du Soleil for more than 20 years. His creations (Nouvelle Expérience, Saltimbanco, Quidam, "O", La Nouba, Varekai and ZED) have toured the world, earning him multiple awards, including "Sound Designer of the Year,” for multimedia facilities at the Nike flagship store in New York and Cirque du Soleil’s Quidam. He was part of the creation team that won a THEA Award for “O” in Las Vegas.
Since moving to Los Angeles in 1993, François has designed the sound for numerous variety shows, plays, musicals, theme parks and museum experiences. He took part in the creation of the Tokyo DisneySea theme park and Templo del Fuego (Universal Studios Port Aventura in Spain), an assignment that eventually led to the creation of his own company, Thinkwell Design & Production. François regularly works on projects throughout the US, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
"The soundscape can elicit powerful emotions within a Cirque show,” he says. “It can warn of impending danger, heighten tension or trigger laughter. It is impossible to escape its influence. My challenge as the Sound Designer is to create an atmosphere that conveys the intentions of the director, highlights the music and support the artists."
“To create the sound environment of IRIS, we used tools and techniques that are poles apart,” he adds. “On the one hand, we designed and installed an advanced sound system. On the other, we took a purely organic approach to create some of the sound effects, using anything we could lay our hands on. It’s a mixture of advanced digital technology and old-school know-how. This is our tribute to the film artisans.”
François Bergeron was born in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec.