Xavier is born

Xavier Geerman was born on the 2nd of August 1987 on an Island called Aruba. Most of his family members were amateur musicians, and they would often play cover songs at birthday parties, holidays, or other family gatherings. As a child, Xavier was often encouraged to play small percussion-like maracas by his parents at family parties.

It was a habit/tradition to switch instruments between songs. This was done because not everyone could play all the songs on the guitar, but everyone could play a percussion instrument so they would exchange instruments in between the songs. Xavier wanted to play the guitar too but he was not allowed to play it because he was too small to hold something so expensive and fragile, and he did not know how to handle fragile items properly yet.

At the age of five, he finally learned 3 basic chords on the Venezuelan cuatro, and at the age of 6, he met Robin Giel who thought him how to play more chords. At the age of 7, his mother started teaching him a few chords on the classical guitar and at the age of 10, he started taking classical guitar lessons.

First electric guitar, first band

In December 1999 at the age of 12, he bought his first electric guitar and created his first band called cold flame, with his cousin and his best friend. This is when he started writing songs for the first time. They played their “first gig” (which was just a few blink 182 songs) at his cousin’s birthday party, and later that year they replaced Xavier’s cousin with Robin’s cousin Omar Geerman, and they renamed the band Counter Clockwise, which much later was re-renamed to Unwanted by Neighbours.

Apart from this he also joined Robin’s folk band called “Tipico Hubenil Santa Cruz”. This band was mainly created to continue the tradition of performing the Dande at people’s front door to wish them a good year, and to perform at the annual Dande Festival. They later started to perform at other events like the “Festival di Himno y Bandera”, and they also performed for Queen Beatrix and her family.

This band (much like his musician family) required everyone in the group to be able to play multiple instruments and to be able to sing the Dande. Since they were playing all day every day for 3 to 5 days straight, switching singers and instruments was a good way to take the load off in order to make it to the end of the trip.
During this time Xavier would learn to play the wiri, tambor, maraca, Clavio, and especially the Cuarta, which thanks to the teachings from Robin Giel, his brother Rocky Giel and their cousin Omar Geerman, Xavier would reach a high level on this instrument.
The three teachers were all cuarta students at the “school di musica Harpa y Cuarta” and they were taking cuarta lessons from Doodle Sophia. Xavier was invited to join this class and after an examination, Xavier, Rocky and Omar together with 3 others were all re-assigned to a higher level class which was called “Supreme Avansa” (supreme advanced).
Xavier (and the rest of the class) would later graduate from this class and receive their “Supreme avansa” Diploma.

Jazz improv classes, writing and arranging songs

At the age of 13, he stopped taking classical guitar lessons and started taking jazz improvisation lessons on his electric guitar. He was also writing and arranging complete songs for his band. A year later he started taking lessons in sight-reading and ear training. At the age of 15, he joined the school’s jazz ensemble and started taking lessons in jazz harmony.

Following the music

In 2006 at 18 years old he graduated from high school. A year later he went to the Netherlands to continue his music career. In 2008 he was accepted in the preparation year of Fonty’s conservatory but he later failed to enter the first year due to getting distracted from his studies by the recording sessions and live performances that he was doing with his band from Aruba.

Studying and experimenting music genres

Between the years 2008 and 2012, he spent most of his time studying and experimenting with different music genres. He also played with 2 different bands and accompanied different artists and was playing live shows every 2 weeks. He was also writing and co-writing songs and recording them with these artists.

Berklee online certificate programs

On January 14th, 2012 he started taking his first lessons in orchestration for film and tv using the Berklee online certificate programs. By the end of September, he received a specialist certificate from this course. By then he was orchestrating his own compositions and arrangements. Some of these are available on youtube. He wrote a few concertos for string ensemble, one of which is still being performed by the “Jeugd strike ensemble” in Apeldoorn.

Study and progress

2013 was a year of study and progress. He expanded his online courses to a Master’s program (which includes 8 different courses) and he was also studying classical music in his free time. In October he started working with Tamara “Claymara” Tanger (a clay animation artist). He was composing background music for her clay animations. He has also been studying to become a piano technician since 2012. He graduated from this school in 2014 with one of the highest grades in the class of 2014.

Fonty’s conservatory

In 2014 he was accepted at the Fonty’s conservatory in Tilburg and started his bachelor’s in classical music composition. He also finished his certificate program and received a master’s certificate in orchestration for film and tv. He also participated in the composition meets choreography event that takes place during the night of the arts festival at the Fonty’s academy of music and performing arts.

First classical music event

In 2015 he earned his propaedeutic diploma and he co-organized his first classical music event. Later that year he was invited to be a part of the composition meets choreography event again. He also composed a piece called “Tumbacali” for the “FC Jongebloed” ensemble. This piece has become a source of inspiration for him, because of the use of Aruban Rhythms in combination with European music composition techniques.

Music history of Aruba, “Heikese Kerk”, Royal Concertgebouw of Amsterdam

Early in 2016, he started researching the music history of Aruba. He wanted to use this knowledge in his upcoming compositions. During this year he visited Aruba 2 times to continue this research. Next to this research he started experimenting a lot more with the Aruban rhythms and mixing them with European classical music. In March of that same year, he participated in an “after-talk” (a discussion between student- and professional artists about the current and future direction of the opera) during the opera forward festival in Amsterdam.
He also composed a piece for the carillon of the “Heikese Kerk” (a church) in Tilburg. The composition was named “Philomena”. This piece had its premiere during the celebration of the 50 years anniversary of this carillon.
He also composed a piece for a soprano, guitar, and cello. This one was titled “Guardian angle’s plea and was inspired by the terrorist attacks in Paris.
Next to this he also composed a piece for Soprano, Alto, and harpsichord. It was a modern Kyrie Eleison.

In September 2016 he was asked by Andreas van Zoelen to compose a piece for his saxophone ensemble. He was also instructed that it would go in premiere at the Royal Concertgebouw of Amsterdam. Next to this he also participated again in the Composition meets choreography event. This year he composed a piece that was called “False awakening”. This was a 10-minute piece that was composed together with another composer called Loes Reiling. They each composed half of the piece.