Celebrating our colleagues: Brooke Zabrowarny
Brooke Zabrowarny, Executive Officer, Vice-Chancellor’s Office
It’s not uncommon for Brooke Zabrowarny to smash out multiple live performances in packed theatres over a weekend, then find herself at home - in full stage makeup and hair - cooking a Sunday night roast and considering Monday’s to-do list for her role in the Vice-Chancellor’s Office.
“It’s a hard thing to calibrate in your brain,’’ she says. “It takes a while for post-performance adrenaline to wear through the body.’’
Some University of Adelaide staff may have heard of Brooke, in her role as Executive Officer – which she describes as “quality assurance and fire putter-outer” - in Professor Peter Høj’s hyper-efficient professional team. But many will also have literally heard her – in her other life, as an acclaimed soprano, whose work as a soloist, ensemble singer and session artist, across both classical and popular music, has been hailed as “sublime”.
A member of the Adelaide Chamber Singers and the State Opera South Australia chorus, Brooke has been part of many of the Festival City’s most admired arts productions – but also some extraordinary pop culture moments.
At just 16, she performed Under the Milky Way Tonight in an ensemble with rock icons The Church at the 2006 Commonwealth Games opening ceremony, before a 75,000-strong crowd and telecast to millions more viewers around the world.
Her “loudest” show to date was with hip hop royalty Hilltop Hoods for their sold-out The Hard Road Restrung concert at Adelaide Entertainment Centre.
And she appeared on last year’s Aria-Award nominated jazz album A Small Shy Truth, by Elixir, featuring Katie Noonan.
But there is that one blockbuster gig that got away. The Adelaide Chamber Singers had been talent scouted and contracted – “I’d even signed the NDA’’ – to perform backing vocals for The Rolling Stones during their 14 On Fire Australian tour.
But it wasn’t to be, with shows abruptly cancelled after a bereavement for Sir Mick Jagger. By the time the rescheduled run landed, the group was on another tour - in France.
“I will probably still be thinking about that one for the rest of my life,’’ she admits ruefully.
Performing in Sydney
Brooke feels “very much at home’’ in the VCO in historic Mitchell Building, just a stone’s throw from the Elder Conservatorium of Music, where she excelled in her studies in Musical Performance and Classical Voice, earning the George Boland Scholarship.
Even as student, her organisational skills stood out nearly as much as her pitch-perfect voice, and she was recruited to work in university administration.
After graduating, Brooke travelled to Europe to build her skills in the Baroque repertoire with esteemed mentors including Dame Emma Kirkby and Andreas Scholl.
While considering a Master’s in Switzerland, she reached a significant crossroads.
“I made a decision that I didn’t want to be a full-time musician,’’ she says. “It can be an incredibly hard lifestyle. Music can become work rather than enjoyment.
“You might have to … say yes to everything even if (the project) didn’t interest you, because you need to pay the rent. You audition for 100 things; you might get one.’’
Brooke with Hiltop Hoods
Instead, Brooke created her own two-career template for a rich and multi-faceted life, combining rewarding roles in higher education with cherry-picked performance work.
It’s led to exceptional experiences, like being part of the winning Choir of the World at Llangollen, Wales in 2013, and performing the works of film composer, the late Ennio Morricone, with the legend himself as conductor, at the 2012 Adelaide Festival curtain raiser in Elder Park.
“To meet the man was extraordinary. Everyone knows The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, and he wrote that!” Brooke says.
Also unforgettable was the operatic centrepiece for the 2020 Adelaide Festival, Romeo Castellucci’s reimagining of Mozart’s Requiem. Brooke and her fellow choristers performed folk dances against a backdrop of projections of an Atlas of Extinctions.
“It was so moving for the audience, people still talk about it, five years later’’ she says. “It was right before Covid hit ... maybe a week after our final performance … the Festival ended, and soon everything shut down. We felt very privileged to get through that run. That cohort of singers will always have a closeness … and remember that time.’’
Sometimes, worlds collide. Brooke was proud to appear in Watershed: The Death of Dr Duncan, about the 1972 murder of a University of Adelaide law lecturer which spearheaded South Australia’s push to decriminalise homosexuality.
“When I started in the VCO team, we were talking about music and Peter (Høj) is a big supporter of the arts, and he said ‘Oh, you were in Watershed!’ I’d done a couple of solos, and he told me ‘I remember that, it was really moving’. It was lovely, very supportive.’’
If there’s been one constant thread, it’s the pursuit of excellence and an affinity with high achievers.
In the Vice-Chancellor’s Office, Brooke is part of what one colleague dubbed a “hard core team” which strives to plan for every eventuality and produce high-quality work in a busy and dynamic environment.
“A lot of what I do in the VCO is about trying to improve processes and assist in delivering quality outcomes and outputs,’’ she says.
“In live performance, you try to be 100 per cent perfect every time, but there are so many variables, it’s almost impossible. The good thing is you must learn to accept that.’’
Brooke in Watershed
Prior to joining VCO in mid-2022, she spent nearly a decade at UniSA, including, amongst other roles, coordinating its Elite Athlete and Performer Program, helping the likes of swimmer Kyle Chalmers, cyclist Alex Porter and hockey player Flynn Ogilvie to juggle study, life and winning Olympic medals.
“One thing I have learned working across high performing people in multiple areas is that everyone, at the end of the day, is just a human,’’ says Brooke, who likes to discover people’s side hustles and hobbies, be it baking, triathlons or the footy.
The flexibility shown to students pursuing their dreams has been mirrored in her own working life at the University of Adelaide and previously at UniSA.
Brooke has flourished in a highly supportive environment, from the ability to work around the odd weekday rehearsal and domestic or international touring, to spotting the Vice Chancellor in the first few rows when she steps on stage, as happened in April.
“I don’t tend to get stage fright, but I did get a tiny bit nervous, thinking if I stuff this up, there’ll be a lot to talk about tomorrow!’’
Lifelong learning is a given for Brooke, who has sung in nearly 20 languages – including nine for 2025 Adelaide Festival hit Innocence alone, Spanish to perform as soloist with Flamenco master Paco Peña in the Adelaide Guitar Festival, Hindi, Japanese, Bulgarian and Latin, using the International Phonetic Alphabet where possible.
La Boheme on the Beach
“I’ve certainly sung a lot about love and loss in German, French and Italian,’’ she laughs. Just recently, in State Opera South Australia’s acclaimed production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Brooke filled in for an unwell cast member, sight-singing 30 pages of music in German from her iPad from the side of the stage.
Growing up in “cattle country”, central Queensland, Brooke was intent on studying music from an early age and chose Adelaide for its friendly vibe and arts culture.
She is grateful for her time at the Elder Conservatorium, which “changed my life” and enjoys being based at the beautiful North Terrace campus.
Her favourite time of year at the University “has got to be Grads’’.
“The excitement, the energy … there’s nothing quite like it. I love walking past Bonython Hall and being asked to take pictures of students with their families,’’ she says.
“It’s a reminder of why we are here, and you can’t help but be buoyed by the celebration of their success.’’
The transition to Adelaide University, led by new Vice Chancellor, Professor Nicola Phillips, will bring significant change.
But the merging of the two institutions where she has spent almost all her adult life feels “a bit like getting the band together’’ for Brooke. “The cultures are not that different and there are such great people at both universities.’’
How does this high achiever keep all the balls in the air? “Caffeine, dry shampoo, an incredibly supportive husband, and a little sugar, now and again.’’
Written by Jackie Tracy, Communications Coordinator