Xavier Brouwer (1972-) is an Australian musical theatre writer and composer based in Melbourne, Australia.
He started writing musicals since the age of sixteen, encouraged by a pioneering primary and secondary school music program at Xavier College [1], Melbourne, in the 1980s. Xavier first played violin then trumpet, including in the Victorian Youth Symphony Orchestra [2], then dabbled with other instruments in order to gain a broad and deep understanding of orchestration.
While still at high school he wrote his first musical, an Off Broadway-style rock musical called Hey! (1988) and a one-act jazz musical called Jesse Christopher (1989, turned into a two-act musical with Richard O'Shaughnessy in 2004) which set the Passion of Christ in New York in the 1920s.
After graduating from high school, Xavier studied composition at Dr Hoch's Konservatorium[3] in Frankfurt, Germany, then returned to Australia where he studied opera singing with acclaimed Australian opera singer Geoffrey Harris [4] and deepened his performing arts experience through various musicals, choirs, plays, modern dance pieces, and directing and producing activities around Melbourne.
Xavier's most successful musical has been MACKILLOP (2008)[5], a dramatic musical on the life of Australia's first saint, Mary MacKillop. This has had three productions over three years (2008-2010) in Australia (Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide).
In addition to musical theatre, Xavier has written music in other styles such as pop, rock, modern classical [6], a capella, jazz, world, liturgical, lieder and for film and modern dance.
Xavier's most recent musical DIVE (2011) is an Off Broadway-style rock musical that exposes the lives of four disadvantaged Australians cooped up together in a pressure-cooker rooming house in Melbourne.