Atlantic Canadian soprano partners with Margaret Atwood on new album

Soprano Measha Brueggergosman-Lee has achieved a lot this year – including the Governor General’s award – but her latest project is her most personally important: An album with Canadian author Margaret Atwood.

“I love celebrating our creatives,” Brueggergosman-Lee told CTV News Atlantic’s Katie Kelly. “I love our necessity right now to protect free speech and to uplift our creatives and Margaret is really at the core of that.”

Atwood – who is best known for works like “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “Oryx and Crake” – and Brueggergosman-Lee created “Zombie Blizzard,” which takes seven of Atwood’s poems and sets them to music.

“The first song in the cycle of concert arias is called ‘Zombie,’” Brueggergosman-Lee said. “The second song in the cycle of concert arias is called ‘Blizzard.’ That’s how you got ‘Zombie Blizzard.’”

Brueggergosman-Lee will perform the album at the Carleton Inn in Halifax on Oct. 30 and 31, and at the Church Brewing Company in Wolfville, N.S., on Nov. 6. She will also play selections from her other recent album, “Laureate.”

“At the Carleton, it’ll be an intimate experience because it’s such a beautiful space for people who are so close up,” she said. “We’re chatting, we’re talking, we’re all together. Then when we get to Wolfville, we’ll expand to include more people on ‘Laureate.’ It’s this wonderful multi-ethnic, incredible fusion of celebratory styles.”

“I like to call my genre unity because I’m trying to bring as many people together as possible because that is the power of classical music.”