Tom Zajac is a multi-instrumentalist widely praised for his versatility,

"and sacbut player Tom Zajac...was particularly versatile, also playing a bagpipe, flutes and recorders and, in some numbers, fingering a recorder with his right hand while he played a drum with his left." [Washington Post, October 14th, 2002]
Photograph of Tom Zajac playing bagpipe and his stylish playing.
"The art of improvisation, long before the jazz era, was explored in a bagpipe solo dashingly played by Tom Zajac." [Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 5th, 2002]

Tom is a member of Piffaro, the Philadelphia-based renaissance wind band, and the musical/theatrical group Ex Umbris. He's a regular guest artist with the Folger Consort, of Washington, DC, and has also appeared with other leading ensembles in the US including the King's Noyse, Newberry Consort, Violins of Lafayette, Waverly Consort, Concert Royal, and New York's Ensemble for Early Music.

Tom can be heard on over 30 recordings, ranging from Medieval dances and baroque opera, to contemporary folk-rock for Dorian, Deutsche Gramophon, Angel EMI, Virgin Veritas, Harmonia Mundi, Lyrichord, Windham Hill, and others. With his group Ex Umbris, he performed at the 5th Millennium Council event in the East Room of the Clinton White House. He played serpent in a work by Peter Schickele for the nationally broadcast radio show "A Prairie Home Companion", hurdy gurdy for an American Ballet Theater Company performance of a work choreographed by Twyla Tharp, bagpipe for an internationally broadcast sports beverage commercial, and percussion for a 16th-century equestrian ballet at the Berkeley Early Music Festival in California. The sound of his bagpipe also awoke the astronauts every morning on a recent space shuttle mission.

Tom teaches at recorder and early music workshops throughout the US and is on the faculty of the Wellesley College.