 Relocating to the west coast in 1968, Bergamo taught briefly at the University of Washington before arriving at CalArts in 1970, where he taught from the school's origin until his retirement in 2005.On the west coast, he studied North and South Indian drumming as well as other non-European drumming traditions.Bergamo studied tabla with Mahaparush Misra, Shankar Ghosh, Swapan Chaudhuri, and South Indian drumming with T. H. Subash Chandran, T. H. Vinayakram, T. Ranganathan Poovalur Srinivasan, P.S.