Eugene Rousseau has performed across North America and on five continents since his Carnegie Hall debut in 1965. He gave the first solo saxophone recitals in Paris, Berlin, Vienna, London, and Amsterdam and has given a yearly master course at the prestigious Mozarteum in Salzburg since 1991, the first year the saxophone was included. Rousseau has appeared with the Minnesota Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin, the Pan-American Festival Orchestra under Lukas Foss, the Indianapolis Symphony under Raymond Leppard and Phillipe Entremont, the BBC Orchestra in London, the Janek Philharmonic (Czech Republic), the Kansai Philharmonic (Osaka), the Santiago Philharmonic (Chile), and recitals and master classes throughout the world on a variety of topics related to his instrument.

The catalogue of Eugene Rousseau recordings includes more than a dozen discs. His Deutsche Grammophon recording (1971) was the first complete disk of saxophone concertos with orchestra. In addition to several compact discs with piano, he has recorded with the Budapest Strings, the Winds of Indiana (Frederick Fennell, conductor) and the Haydn Trio of Vienna. Eugene has premiered numerous works written for him, including "Partita" by Juan Orrego-Salas; Jindrich Feld's "Sonata for Alto Saxophone and Piano," and "Concerto for saxophones and orchestra;" Bernhard Heiden's "Fantasia Concertante" for alto saxophone and winds; Hear Again in Memory by Frederick Fox; and Don Freund's "Skyscrapings" for alto saxophone and piano. His solo performances include appearances with the U.S. Army Band at Kennedy Center, the Budapest Strings in Hungary, the Tokyo Bach Band, as well as the Hammamatsu International Wind Instrument Festival in Japan.

Since 1972, Eugene has been Yamaha Corporation's chief consultant for saxophone research, contributing to the development of acoustic improvements in saxophones and mouthpieces. Rousseau has also studied and researched the artistic and acoustic characteristics of saxophone mouthpieces, developing and overseeing production of a line of classical and jazz saxophone mouthpieces that bear his name. In 1985, he recorded a video program for Yamaha entitled, "Steps to Excellence." Eugene has numerous scholarly and pedagogical works to his credit, many of which have also been published in French, Japanese, and German. He is author of "Marcel Mule: His Life and the Saxophone," based on interviews with his instructor at the Paris Conservatory, legendary saxophonist Marcel Mule.

Rousseau co-founded the World Saxophone Congress in 1969, and has been President of both the North American Saxophone Alliance (1979-80) and the Comité International du Saxophone (1982-85). In 1993, he was awarded the rank of Honorary Professor at the Prague Conservatory, and was honored as a Distinguished Alumni by the University of Iowa in May 1998, at which institution he earned his Ph.D. under the instruction of Himie Voxman. He holds the title of Distinguished Professor of Music at Indiana University where he taught from 1964 to 2000 and joined the faculty at the University of Minnesota School of Music in 2000.