User:Liberaarchivist/sandbox

{{Infobox musical artist }}
 * name            = Merlin Brouwer
 * birth_name      = Merlin Brouwer
 * alias           =
 * birth_date      = {{birth date and age|2004|09|07|df=y}}
 * birth_place     = Tower Hamlets, London, London, England
 * genre           = Classical crossover}
 * years_active    = 2014–present
 * label           = Warner Classics, EMI Classics, IHM/Libera Music
 * occupation      =
 * instrument      = Vocals · piano · cello

Merlin Brouwer (born 07 September 2004) is an English singer, multi-instrumentalist and composer. In 2014, he began touring with the all-boy English vocal group Libera. Brouwer made his first local appearance with Libera at age 10 during a performance at St John's in London, and his first international appearance during the 2014 Winter Moscow tour. He has featured on 4 albums with Libera taking up main solos in **Jupiter, Hope and Beyond**.

Early life
Brouwer grew up in London, England in the family home situated in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets**.

Brouwer cited his upbringing surrounded by music at local churches and at school events as a key driver behind his passion for music.

At the age of seven he picked up his first instrument, the cello, and by age ten he had started singing with St Barnabas church in Dulwich and practicing the piano alongside. As a self-taught singer, Brouwer quickly progressed in vocal skill and caught the attention of Libera Director Robert Prizeman, whom inducted him into the 2014 Libera class without passing through the miniboy process.

Career
In 2015, Brouwer emerged as a major soloist for the Libera choir debuting as a soloist on the US Spring Tour with the song Sanctus. He grew a familiar face to Libera fans taking a second solo in just his first year of touring with the hit song "Stay With Me" performed the at Christmas Universal Studios Japan performance. This first year in Libera attracted much attention towards Brouwer from various record labels, which lead to collaborations between Prizeman and the Japanese TV producers WOWOW in 2018 on "Shitamachi Rocket".

Following the success of his debut as a mainline soloist, Brouwer gained live solos Usahay, Recordare, Salva Me, and Exultate in 2016 and went on to feature on his second album "Jupiter" taking the solo on the second track "I Vow to Thee My Country". A major appearance at World Youth Day in 2016 was made by Libera with the song Total Praise in which the full touring branch of the choir performed infront of Pope Francis in Krakow. After World Youth Day Libera soloists, including Merlin Brouwer, were spotted at Abbey Road Studios to record a track for the movie Kubo and the Two Strings in which Libera Boys Choir features as a credit.

In December 2017, Brouwer performed at the Royal Albert Hall for the BBC 1 Songs of Praise Big Sing with presenters Claire McCollum and legendary Producer Emyr Afan with his solo, "From a Distance". Following shortly after the success of Jupiter the album "Hope" released in May of 2017 in which Brouwer featured heavily, most notably on the solo Venite Adoramus.

On Audust 27 of 2018, Brouwer made his last recorded performance with the lead solo on "Nearer My God To Thee" at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles, California. After various successes in Libera, Brouwer formally stepped away from the vocal group in 2019 after the Philippines Friendship Tour to pursue his own studies as well as to take up a position with the Junior Trinity Conservatoire of Music and Dance in Greenwich to which he continues to perform to this day.