Soprano Measha Brueggergosman on why she chose Ave Maria to remember the victims of Nova Scotia shooting

Read Story Transcript

When a tragedy like the mass shooting in Nova Scotia strikes, Canadian soprano Measha Brueggergosman knows she can use her singing voice to help those in pain.

"My first instinct is I feel helpless, just like everybody else. But I know that I have something that can bring real comfort," said the Fredericton, N.B., opera singer and recording artist.

"I know that my voice is a gift from God, I know that it really is just mine to steward over, and I can't be stingy with it," she told The Current's Matt Galloway. 

"It's meant to be given to those who maybe can't voice, in the way that I do, this collective pain we all share."

Brueggergosman has recorded a version of Ave Maria for Friday's vigil to commemorate the 22 people killed in last weekend's rampage. The service will be broadcast on CBC Radio, CBC-TV and CBCNews.ca.

"When I recorded the Ave Maria for the families affected by this massacre, my own included, I really wanted to put [a song] out there that would call to mind the services that we can't congregate for, the gatherings that we can't be a part of," she said.

She thinks grieving communities can start to rebuild by reaching out to one another.

"I'm not somebody you can be like: 'Rah, rah, let's just pretend this isn't painful' because it is painful," she told Galloway.

But she added that "in reaching for each other, [we] often fulfil the need that we lack."

"The joy that will come as a result of reconnecting in a real way — just because you wanted to call someone, just because you wanted to hear their voice, just because you knew that they were on their own — I think is what is going to rebuild us."

Written by Padraig Moran. Produced by Caro Rolando.