Measha Brueggergosman-Lee: Open Hearted

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  0:00  
Are women of ill repute with your hosts Wendy Mesley and Maureen Holloway,

Maureen Holloway  0:06  
where do you we've had a number of divas on the show but we've never had an actual by definition diva.

Wendy Mesley  0:13  
So by actual you mean famous opera singer?

Maureen Holloway  0:17  
That's exactly although is divas go Measha Brueggergosman-Lee seems pretty down to earth apart from the never ending name.

Wendy Mesley  0:27  
Yeah, she is a diva if if not by definition, if not by reputation anyway, she is by definition she's she's either a famous opera singer or she's a self important person who is temperamental and difficult to please, we'll see.

Maureen Holloway  0:44  
I mean, not necessarily Measha, but it does raise the question, why are so many talented and skilled women in all trades and aspects of life so often referred to as divas, that doesn't happen to men?

Wendy Mesley  0:56  
Yeah, I know. I mean,

Maureen Holloway  0:58  
if they did, they'd be called Divos. Or they'd be called Divos, there's no like men. divas, right. No, no. In any case, back to Measha. She is originally from Fredericton, New Brunswick, where she grew up singing in the church choir. Her star was on the rise from the get go. She studied at the Boston Conservatory at U of T. She went to Germany, got a master's degree in music there. She's appeared all over the world when all sorts of awards sang the Olympic anthem at the Vancouver Winter Games, was a judge on Canada's got talent and up until quite recently was artists in residence at opera Atelier. 

Wendy Mesley  1:33  
Yeah, kind of kind of cool. Lots of things. And her latest project. It's called Zombie lizard. We can talk about that. It's a collection of songs composed by Aaron Davis, but it's based on poems. And you can hear recitations by Margaret Atwood, who is kind of like Measha, she's Yeah, she's kind of like she never frickin stops. So, so anyway, all of the songs done is written by Margaret Atwood but, but sung by by Misha tackles issues of sexism humor, grief, and we'll plan on

Maureen Holloway  2:12  
Guess we well we know when she's not performing Measha lives in the country in an A in the Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia with her two sons and her husband jazz guitarist Steve Lee. Measha, have we encapsulated you properly because we could go on and on?

Measha Brueggergosman-Lee  2:26  
You have to know that I remain the artist in residence for opera actually,

Maureen Holloway  2:32  
you're still Oh, because when I checked it said till 2023

Measha Brueggergosman-Lee  2:36  
Celebrating renewed contracts. That's okay. I'm getting renewed. All right, yeah,

Maureen Holloway  2:40  
Marshall Pinkowski and Jeanette Zing, the most beautiful people

Measha Brueggergosman-Lee  2:44  
on the planet statuesque, I try not to stand next to them

Maureen Holloway  2:48  
there they look like like fantasy creatures from from, like the good guys know, I started I started when opera tell you first started in the 80s. I don't know why they either adopted me or I adopted them. And I talked to them about every production and they're, they're so unique. And you guys have found each other. And obviously, this is a natural collaboration.

Measha Brueggergosman-Lee  3:08  
I can't believe it. Like when you get to a certain point, I want to say in life, your career when you finally realize that your life and your careers essentially be the same thing. I then started really honing in on the relationships that mirrored what I believe about the arts about how to construct a family and Marshall and Jeanette are very much family that I have chosen.

Wendy Mesley  3:34  
So you're not a diva, I think we've got to the we set this up. Alright, are you?

Maureen Holloway  3:42  
Where did that come from? Where did that come from? Was it difficult? Was it because often sopranos about opera, female opera singers, because the songs were so difficult they needed focus it Where does it come from? I

Measha Brueggergosman-Lee  3:56  
think sometimes people miss numr, the term pre Madonna and diva. Now, I don't think they're interchangeable. I think that a diva. And the reason we don't use Devo is because I think it sounds too much like devil and the men folk will be having that. But Prima Donna, as in first woman would have been the soprano of the house, who was the star that attracted crowds. And so as first woman have the score of these houses that had house singers, she would have maybe had the reputation of being the most important but we all know that any woman who sits in a position of importance or leadership, what follows quite quickly are usually terms that reduce her to being like some emotional nightmare. So

Wendy Mesley  4:55  
you're not know

Measha Brueggergosman-Lee  4:59  
do Do I have standards? And do I surround myself with people who understand those standards, including like, My children? Yes. But that's just because we're called to excellence. But I can make anything sound light hearted, and you'll still end up doing what I want.

Maureen Holloway  5:15  
That's the scale. It is. It is.

Wendy Mesley  5:18  
I was so struck back in 2000 years ago, when you had a heart attack or some kind of heart, and you were like, to me, you were like, 12, and you're still 12. And since you've had to open heart surgeries, and you're an opera singer, I was like, how on earth? How do you do that? How do you have a bum heart? I think you've called it.

Measha Brueggergosman-Lee  5:38  
I know, we've all heard. I mean, just so that the devil knows we've broken that generational stronghold off of the reverberations from me. But I do know that the stress has to go somewhere. Like it, whether or not it manifests in how I treat people, which would not be my wish, or the body absorbs it. And eventually it comes to a head, or it's a genetic thing, all of those factors sort of whirlwind in my life and gave me a platform on which to tell women that it's really important to take care of their hearts, because right at this point, it is the number one killer of women and in particular, black women, is cardiovascular issue. So I just think that you're given challenges that will ultimately uplift the body and give you an opportunity to encourage other people. And this sort of what we are called to do is to turn our mess into a miracle or test into a testimony. Come on, now I'm getting the liberation.

Wendy Mesley  6:47  
You are. So are you going to perform now or Yeah, yeah. Go on. Yeah. So how do you sing after? Like being an opera singer and having a heart attack? How do you like, how do you put those two together?

Measha Brueggergosman-Lee  7:08  
Well, I think anybody that looks at my job on paper, or my schedule on paper, or what I've done on paper would probably consider it quite full or stressful. But that's not there box of Lego pieces to put together, that's my lego pieces. It doesn't feel weird for me, because I am tasked for it. I'm allowed to pursue what is mine and my gifting and my inheritance, and the example that I'm meant to be setting for my babies, so that they might also know that you know, their gifting is something that is going to get used to help heal people encourage people. But it's like, we have to shed ourselves of the fallacy that life isn't hard. Like it's not going to go smoothly. And if you're going to accomplish anything, you're going to be attacked in ways that you don't expect. So that you get wisdom that you didn't think you'd ever get.

Maureen Holloway  8:11  
from a physical point of view. I know nothing about cardiology, but breathing deeply if I am just asking you this question, is it not good for you, for your heart to to fill your your lungs into I mean, is that not is singing the way you do? Is that not a cardiovascular activity, it may be a good one.

Measha Brueggergosman-Lee  8:33  
It's a super sport, like to oxygenate your blood with deep breaths like that. But that's sort of like asking if Ballet has helped healthy for

Maureen Holloway  8:43  
which we know it isn't.

Measha Brueggergosman-Lee  8:45  
There's not opera singing classical singing isn't natural. So when you go to do it, you have to make sure that you're doing it with an eye to longevity, which was how I was raised in my technique. So when I started voice lessons when I was seven, it was, first of all, for the glory of God, I was taught by the music director of my church, the church that I was in at a classical music, direct tradition. And coupled that with listening to Saturday afternoons at the Met the technical production, we didn't play any secular music in the house. And those were my pop stars. So for me, it didn't seem like a risky business. And then my dad was not going to have me have a music career in which I would build my career singing in bars. So classical music it was, but I wasn't ended up on stage one way or the other, whether it was on a poll or in front of an orchestra, like I just had that kind of fearlessness, like people in crowds and I don't like to be in crowds. I'm definitely an introverted extrovert, but I am not intimidated by being in front of a crowd.

Wendy Mesley  9:51  
Just one more hard question or maybe maybe most got a couple but I find it interesting and all the pictures of you, like you were a lot You're not wearing one today. But there's there's a lot of like V necks and I we can see your scar from the open heart surgery, you're gonna show us the scar now Oh, so you're not hiding anything. You're just like, oh,

Measha Brueggergosman-Lee  10:11  
let me let me rotate so that so that you're not seeing like oh look is that my candidate reads with you but all rotates because the sun's coming this way we live in the country as you said, I think my example to women to people who struggle with heart disease or even like fidelity in marriage like my life has got to be an open book for the same reason that I stated before, of not being afraid of a crowd. I feel like in every crowd, there are always individuals that respond to something about me that I've not hidden, that helps them on their journey to healing. So who am I to withhold or hide or conceal when I've committed to a life of performance. That being said, I can't make choices that aren't sustainable. Because I don't want to be fake. I don't want to be like an oversharer. But I certainly don't want to conceal or make people think that my life isn't as hard as theirs. And in some areas may be harder just because of the two emergency open heart surgeries and the collection of suffering that has, at the risk of sounding overly poetic, boastful in me. I'm not a victim. I'm a victor, right. So there's no condemnation in my mind for the hardship of mistakes that I've making, that I've made, but I can be open about it, because you know, I'm forgiven, not perfect, but progressing,

Maureen Holloway  11:57  
which kind of dovetails nicely into your memoir that you wrote it 39 With a lot of living ahead of you. But nonetheless, it was a very revelatory story. And you did not shy from talking about things that that have happened to you and things that decisions that you've made good and bad.

I need to put I need to add it to mine as well.

Measha Brueggergosman-Lee  12:25  
What is a studious background? That is incredible. Yeah, I

Maureen Holloway  12:28  
know. Pretty impressive, isn't it? I actually half of those books came from my dad. But anyway, and I haven't read

Measha Brueggergosman-Lee  12:33  
them. I love your attendance board. Like that's fantastic.

Wendy Mesley  12:41  
I haven't figured out what it is. Yeah, we

Maureen Holloway  12:42  
don't know what it was. But you know, you better be there. I think it's probably your motto. We don't know what it is, but you should show up for it. But back to being so open both open heart in every way and open about your own experiences good and bad knowing that your kids will read this quite possibly, how is that? I'm talking about infidelity, specifically. But there's a lot of other stuff in there,

Measha Brueggergosman-Lee  13:07  
like sexual sin and exploitation and the twisting of, you know, God's original intention for marriage, like all that stuff is really important for my sons to read. And I did write it for them so that they weren't, because they'll inevitably wonder like, at this point, they're eight and 11. And sometimes I'll like open it and read little excerpts, and they're like, mom read the part about me, you know, because, of course, you know, so it really was intended to be a resource for our family. Whether it's a cautionary tale or hemorrhaging, you know, recount of just a life lived full of blood, you know what I mean? Like, you just got to get to the altar, put blood on it, and know that it's going to lead to healing to praise, you know, because we're supposed to have, I think suffering in order to access parts of ourselves that we wouldn't be able to attain otherwise. And I lived in this sort of moveable dome of morality, where I really thought that the rules didn't apply to me. And woe to those performers or people who are set apart and praised for performance, when really, I mean, the heart is what matters. And so I just didn't have a healthy heart on so many levels. And I continue to work at it and my boys know that moment can be stinky and that God is the only perfect parent available but the writing the book and going through that process and just the tears in that latent artist colony where I wrote the book at the Banff Centre. Really, I mean, it costs me a lot at this point like at 46. I do it again. and like it was traumatic for me to relive that. And I had a ghostwriter for him it bless her heart who followed me around for three years and took interviews. And then she wrote what I called the Misha brick, which was just like a bunch of information. That didn't sound at all like me. And I'd already taken the money. And then I realized I was like, oh, shoot, I'm gonna have to write this. So in the process of going through the interviews, and having to regurgitate all of the things that I thought matter to me, you know, like the career highs and the list of like, your, essentially your like spoken CV, which nobody cares about, like, obviously, if we're talking and I'm still alive, and we're looking at like, the office that I recently cleaned, there's the real triumph, then you can take for granted that she's done some stuff. But does her family like her? What's her relationship with their mother? Like, like does she give to the poor? I really think that at a certain point in your life, you're really having to accumulate a legacy of generosity above everything else.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  16:12  
The women of ill repute.

Wendy Mesley  16:15  
I find it so interesting that you've done something with with Margaret Atwood. So she's a complicated person. She's taken a lot of positions that not everybody agrees with, but we kind of love her anyway. She's plugging ahead. She just lost her husband. And so there's lots of grief. There's she's written so much about sexism. Why did you choose her? Or did she choose you? Because she's, she's kind of, she's kind of a character. Yeah.

Maureen Holloway  16:40  
How did you come together?

Measha Brueggergosman-Lee  16:41  
Listen, I stalked that woman. Like, I was merciless, like, I will find her at the gillers. I would figure out where she was reading. I would like break conflict shoots. I know now, she doesn't read the comments. But I will be like, oh my goodness, wasn't that ever insightful? Like I was massive. I fangirled all over her until I insinuated my way into her life. And she is one of the most fascinating people and I knew that if I could just get close enough and sit at her feet, I would learn so much. So when I'm with her I really don't do a lot of talking and she is so generous of heart and spirit that she's screw allows me to like prey on her. I voraciously read everything she does. And I I just know that she's the voice of the culture. Like for me. I love how fearless she is, even though all of us are afraid on some level about certain things. And the openness with which she lives and expresses. I just really want that for me and my son's in my marriage. And it's really a life that will outlive us. All right? So while we are still here all together, I wanted to do whatever I could to have a record of the fact that I respected her so much

Maureen Holloway  18:25  
salt is Blizzard zombie zombie Blizzard

Measha Brueggergosman-Lee  18:31  
was like, you know, people might come to the concert expecting that there'll be like a blizzard of zombies. And I was like, Yeah, but we come by it honestly, because it's the first two poems in the cycle. The first poem is AMI. The second poem is blizzard. And we go on from there. And it's catchy. Like I remember saying in my friend's house, throwing out a few titles, and their nine year old when I said zombie Blizzard was like, Wait, what about zombies?

Maureen Holloway  19:04  
Got your attention?

Measha Brueggergosman-Lee  19:06  
I think we found the title for our album. Yeah. And she also led you suit. She's like the photo. She's like, that doesn't look like you. Why are you putting it on the cover? And I was like sometimes, Margaret, you gotta go with the sassy photo. So then people and then they'll check out with the how is that dress held in place? tape?

Maureen Holloway  19:29  
Tape, two sided tape. And

Measha Brueggergosman-Lee  19:31  
I love the photographer Lisa Macintosh took that photo.

Maureen Holloway  19:34  
Oh, we know. All right. Yeah,

Measha Brueggergosman-Lee  19:38  
multiple reasons where you come at things and try and include as many people who are deserving of having their name set in my mouth as possible. So whether the photo looks like me or not, that's a photo that I get to say is by my dear friend Lisa Macintosh. So there's that and then that green thing is made by what what was Magpie and is now calling response clothing. Come on, like it just represents a lot for me. And the it's a combination of friendships and professional like trajectory because I really want classical music to do a new thing. There's no better industry positioned to usher in newness and innovation than one that has as its core basis, originality, and excellence and genius. So why not call Aaron Davis to write a song cycle that we call concert Arias, and Canada's most prolific? What's that called apocalyptic?

Maureen Holloway  20:49  
dystopian

Measha Brueggergosman-Lee  20:50  
dystopian I call it prophetic, because this is bad news, but it's likely to come to pass. And Aaron answered my phone call, and then allowed me to take their artistic output, put it through my body and voice and create zombie Blizzard, where we also get to love on Lisa Macintosh and her photographic artistry. And now we have this collection that is represented in like this material thing. But it's going to last forever, because it'll go into people's ears and brains and hearts, and hopefully, challenge the industry to create multi genre bending, collaborative, no no's that turn into like, yes, yeses. I don't know. I just made that up.

Maureen Holloway  21:44  
That's no, it sounds great. But that might actually maybe, maybe, no, maybe no, babies? No, it's yes, yes or no, no,

Wendy Mesley  21:52  
I really want to ask you about racial inequality and how you'd like us, like how you ended up, you're in Fredericton. Now, which is kind of weird for an opera singer to be from Fredericton. But it's very, very cool. And I don't want to sound too Laurentian about it all but but but it's kind of great. But it was only through some kind of show with CBC that you ended up finding out that you had this long, long history that now you're Goldsman, burger burger Gozman. Lee, because you've got married a couple times. But the Gosman he was the fifth grandfather Anyway, tell us that that whole story and why, what? how it's influenced you?

Measha Brueggergosman-Lee  22:32  
Yeah, solid? I love that question. It's a very odd thing to represent a history of courage. And I guess it's freedom from slavery. Literally. When you think of my black ancestry, I am descended from black loyalists, which is a complicated thing, when you know that your liberators are also other people's oppressors. But I think what I love most about that complication is that it forces a conversation. Because it's it's not simple. This history of ours, anybody's history is going to have like a myriad of conflict and gray area. And I was on cvcs Who do you think you are? And discovered did a little DNA swab and discovered that there was Cameroonian descendants that had been stolen from Cameroon bought to the brought to the East Coast bought and brought to the east coast of the what would become the United States escaped their slave masters and went to fight with the British behind British lines, and then were granted emancipation in exchange for fighting for the British in the last stronghold of the British, which what would become New York, and then they sail north on the Concorde. And you can see my family's name Gasman in the ship's manifest. And Fanny, and John Gasman, the parents of rules Gasman. And if you go across the line in the Book of Negroes, you see, born free. So none of my ancestors were ever enslaved on Canadian soil. And I am seventh generation and my sons are eight. So when you ask if I feel super Canadian, and more specifically, super maritime me, I have this deeply entrenched sense of belonging to this country and a real sense of gratitude for the fact that I get to raise my like swirly babies here and they have dual citizenship with Switzerland in the irony of all ironies with their dad my was been in there baby daddy, and so when I go to remarry. And don't think twice about being black and picking a white husband, and owning land and even getting to drive and practice my faith and love Jesus and read the Bible which is banned in like over 50 countries worldwide. I make it very clear to my children that our existence is not normal. And that the majority of the world does not live, how we do here in the Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia. I know I'm still very connected to Fredericton. Windy, but I don't live there anymore. I followed my parents, when my dad came down to study at Acadia divinity college to become a pastor after he retired from the CDC. And now, ladies, I I still feel really weird saying it but I am in my second year of a Master's of theology degree in practical theology. So matters to me how the faith is passed on how it studied the traditions that led us to how we practice it. What happens now, like what happens now that we are able to speak so freely and openly about race relations, and prophetic witness, and how we're called to social change and awareness and speaking hard truths, while also simultaneously giving people hope, that when you know, that we have been stinkers racially and in terms of the treatment of the genders, and any issues of equity, fueled by the demon, of capitalism in all of its forms, and come for me, those of you who want to call me a conspiracy theorist, but the thing is, the math does not add up, and these systems cannot abide. We have way too many poor people for how much money exists in this country.

Wendy Mesley  26:58  
Well, it's getting better. I'm joking. It's just getting worse. Well,

Maureen Holloway  27:03  
in some ways, I'm just listening to Misha, listen to you and thinking you have. You have faith, you have love. You have enormous talent. You have such a layered life. You have intellectual curiosity, you have made enough money to enjoy all these things. And you didn't get these things because you were lucky.

Measha Brueggergosman-Lee  27:27  
No, I mean, I got these things because I was positioned to multiply. And I was raised to serve. And I think when you live a life of service, which is already countercultural, you end up living according to a math that will always have you fed Never have I seen the righteous begging for bread. And that word righteous, don't get it confused with some buzzworthy Christianese. That means that I'm better than other people. I'm not bitter. It's just that I do believe that I'm forgiven. And I operate out of that forgiveness, because I've been forgiven much. So I, I sort of have this dark water off a duck's back kind of vibe, because I knew everybody's in some kind of pain. But if I don't see their Imago day, if I don't see the image of God inside each and every person, then I'm liable to allow my anger issues, my sense of entitlement, my impatience, and my envy to steer my ship and I refuse I refuse.

Wendy Mesley  28:38  
Well, Moe and I are trying to do all those things with or without God, and good luck to all of us. We're missing

Maureen Holloway  28:51  
we're missing a few the

Wendy Mesley  28:53  
couple of keys. Oh, it's lovely to talk to you. I find it so interesting that you went from well, the rules don't apply to me and I'm just gonna do whatever I want to now you're you're you're studying theology. It's a it's an end singing. Yeah, you're

Measha Brueggergosman-Lee  29:10  
like, This is a great way to lose your faith is to go to seminary, because all of a sudden, we're part of this tradition that has intellectualize something that is super personal. So never do I want anybody to think that, you know, just like classical music or yoga, there is a tradition that does not really have a relationship with the practice. So whether or not you talk about God or study God, whether or not you know, him only manifests in the fruit of how you treat people. Well,

Wendy Mesley  29:48  
that's the line I've been watching the Americans and that's what the line comes down to from the pastor guy is it? It all depends on how you treat people. And that's it, whether it's religion or not. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good show.

Maureen Holloway  29:59  
By the way, for a good show it'll leave you or leave our listeners with a piece from zombie Blizzard, which is out. I'll get all the information but we are speaking to you just a couple of weeks and weeks ahead of the release March 1. Okay, March March.

Wendy Mesley  30:19  
Sing it. Now sing it

or first, majors can you do more? Sorry.

Maureen Holloway  30:33  
Well, we're about we're gonna we're gonna play a piece right now. Yeah, when he made a good point, you have to stop getting married, okay? Or if you don't take their names or don't absorb their names, which I think you're doing. I got the shortest one I could. Lee You're right. Let's open sticks for that

Measha Brueggergosman-Lee  30:53  
it now I can turn my name into like an adjective. So you could say that you could do things in a burger Gasman leeway?

Maureen Holloway  31:00  
Yes. You can say that easily. The rest of us are gonna have to

Wendy Mesley  31:04  
practice well, you can never get divorced now. Yeah. So you have Gasman Lee burger Gasman Lee the rapidly yes, we're ready. Oh, it's been lovely to talk to you. Thank you, Misha for doing this and, and all the best with your album and your

Maureen Holloway  31:20  
studies and your family and your love and your heart. Thank

Measha Brueggergosman-Lee  31:23  
you so much, Maureen. Thank you, Wendy. I appreciate the chat. I loved it. I laughed a lot.

Wendy Mesley  31:31  
When love you, we love all of it. So thank you.

Measha Brueggergosman-Lee  31:34  
I love you to

Maureen Holloway  31:38  
wait, you didn't hear off the end after we stopped recording. And now we're back on. Wait. So Misha has invited herself to your place. Yeah, with Carolyn Taylor. It is like because you live in two beautiful places that are close to where what? Carolyn who lives in the same areas you it's like I sit there going Oh, okay. Well, have a nice time.

Wendy Mesley  32:01  
We'll just have to move but I think you had a new name for her because we're we're playing zombie blizzard. But you had a new name? Yes.

Maureen Holloway  32:08  
Blondie. Blizzards. Bloody buzzers, I can't I have, I don't know. I don't know what it is. What an absolutely powerful and an impressive woman she is and so down to earth and I love her so much.

Wendy Mesley  32:20  
I know I kind of slipped out at the end. I said, I love you.

Maureen Holloway  32:27  
She has that effect. She has that you know, you will do what I want. And you will love me for it kind of strength.

Wendy Mesley  32:33  
So she managed to get Margaret Atwood like, it's taught me how to and officially asked her we just stalk her and see. Yeah, but but she actually reached out she refused to be told no. And maybe that's maybe that's what you have to do. But she's very

Maureen Holloway  32:45  
tenacious that Misha is and now she's studying. She's getting a doctorate and in what is it practical theology, which is a bit of a proxy war. But not if anybody can do it. She can. herself Yeah, yeah. So that was tough. And, you know, such supreme talent. Well, I wanted

Wendy Mesley  33:06  
to ask her about the West Bend. I've never heard that before. Yeah, the father of the baby daddy.

Maureen Holloway  33:13  
They are they are are from what I've read. They're just you know, one of those incredibly functioning amicable relationship relationships and their co parenting and so on. And, and yeah, it's, you know, just because a marriage doesn't work out doesn't mean it wasn't successful in its own way. I should be telling you that I've never been married once. But you know that a relationship that ends isn't necessarily a bad one. It's all worthwhile.

Wendy Mesley  33:35  
Yeah, no, I would I would entirely agree with that. And we'll never be opera singers but it was nice to hear a breakout into song occasionally so that was great but he can't be

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  33:52  
Women of ill repute was written and produced by Maureen Holloway and Wendy Mesley. With the help from the team at the sound off media company and producer Jet Belgraver.