DRESDEN, GERMANY: Midway through several European dates in the run-up to Christmas, Measha Brueggergosman’s mind is on her own side of the Atlantic Ocean as she anticipates a late-winter tour that will bring her to the Strait area for the first time.
The native of Fredericton will share selections from her soon-to-be-released album Songs of Freedom on Saturday, February 25 at SAERC Auditorium. The Port Hawkesbury stop is one of four Maritime dates for the classically-trained soprano, whose roots are found in the 18th-century arrival of nearly 3,500 Black Loyalists who fled the United States to settle on Canada’s east coast.
“It’s really, truly my home, and whatever I can do to share how richly I’ve been blessed by the community that raised me, I take every opportunity,” Brueggergosman told The Reporter.
“The sense of me being the performer, and [an audience member] being the listener – that, for me, is an exchange, and I think that exchange is at its most intimate in the Maritimes, just based on my own experiences and how comfortable I feel with audiences in the Maritimes.”
The Songs of Freedom album, slated for a January release, is a companion piece to a documentary film of the same name that showcased Brueggergosman’s singing abilities while tracing her African roots. As she prepares to take this project to Maritime audiences, the daughter of a New Brunswick Baptist deacon is hoping to drive home the struggles of her ancestors while sharing her Christian faith through the African-American spirituals that permeate the film and the album.
“I wanted it to be as autobiographical as it could possibly be,” Brueggergosman recalled.
“I am a Christian and I do love Jesus, and for me, this repertoire represents really important tenets of my faith. But beyond that, there’s a portion of the folk repertoire or the oral tradition of song, and I can easily see its merits, musically.”
Seven years removed from the dissection of her aorta following open-heart surgery, Brueggergosman, a mother of two young boys, is showing no signs of slowing down as she takes on operatic and classical music performances on several continents through the course of a year. However, she is hoping Songs of Freedom is the right project for this particular point in the world’s history.
“[While recording the soundtrack] I didn’t know that Donald Trump would be the president-elect of the United States, I didn’t know Justin Trudeau would be the great white hope for Canada – I didn’t know we would be here,” Brueggergosman marveled.
“I just knew that I was where I was, and that it was time for me to put a repertoire that lays me bare and humbles me in a spiritual sense.”
Tickets for Measha Brueggergosman’s February 25 performance at the SAERC Auditorium can be purchased at the Port Hawkesbury Civic Centre box office or on-line at: www.phcivic.com. The performance is supported by The Reporter, 101.5 The Hawk and Maritime Inns.
For more details, including tour dates and sound samples, visit the Web site: www.measha.com, or check out Measha Brueggergosman’s Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Spotify accounts.