Measha Brueggergosman (born Gosman) is a Canadian soprano with deep roots in the country, tracing back at least eight generations. She was born in Fredericton to Anne Eatmon and Sterling Gosman. Measha married Markus Brügger, a German native, whom she first met in high school when he was an exchange student in New Brunswick. They combined their last names to form Brüggergosman and have two sons.

As a child, Gosman started singing in her local Baptist church choir, where her father was a deacon. She began studying voice and piano at the age of seven. In her teenage years, she took voice lessons in her hometown and attended summer programs at the Boston Conservatory and a choral camp in Rothesay on scholarships. She studied for a year with New Brunswick soprano Wendy Nielsen before pursuing a Bachelor of Music at the University of Toronto. She then spent five years in Germany, obtaining a Master’s degree from the Robert Schumann Hochschule in Düsseldorf.

Many African Americans, offered freedom in exchange for fighting for the British during the American War of Independence, accepted the offer and migrated to Canada, particularly the Maritime provinces.

Brueggergosman performed with the Nathaniel Dett Chorale, then obtained the lead role in Beatrice Chancy (1998) an opera about an enslaved African-Canadian woman in 19th-century Nova Scotia.

Brueggergosman’s powerful performances have garnered international acclaim. She has performed with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the International Tattoo in Nova Scotia, the National Arts Centre Orchestra, the Cincinnati Opera, and the International Beethoven Festival in Bonn. Her 2005 performance in William Bolcom’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience won three Grammy Awards, including Best Classical Album. She has also won awards at the Montreal International Musical Competition, the International Music Competition in Munich, and the Queen Sonja International Music Competition in Oslo.

Brueggergosman has received two Juno nominations, winning in 2008 for Classical Album of the Year.

In June 2009, she underwent open heart surgery to address a heart condition, and returned to the stage in September 2009 for a performance at the Toronto International Film Festival.

In 2012 Brueggergosman was a judge on the short-lived Canadian reality show Canada’s Got Talent and on Slice TV’s Project Runway Canada.

 She has also had acting roles in the Murdoch Mysteries episode “Murdoch at the Opera“, and in the film Brown Girl Begins.

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