Brielle Ansems

Brielle Ansems was born in Hamilton, Ontario. She was ten years old when her parents decided they’d had enough of the break-ins and bicycle thefts and relocated their family to Montague, Prince Edward Island. 

Her penchant for performance started in Ontario with school talent shows when she was only eight. After moving to the Island, her interest in music heightened. At 12, she learned to play the piano, and at 14 she picked up the guitar. At this time, she was gaining confidence and comfort in her performance skills and she found a thrilling and comfortable place on the stage at the Sturgeon Ceilidh. It was also around this time when she started writing her own songs and really finding her own voice.  

Ansems has always had a love for lyrics and she’d relish in getting a new CD so she could follow along with the words of the songs she loved. Over time, she began refining her voice and her own lyrical style. She’d always enjoyed creative writing and this felt like a natural development for her artistic life. 

Along the way, she had doubts. She’d started and dropped out of college and tried to find her path, often questioning if she should truly pursue a life in the arts. Her parents supported and encouraged her to follow her heart, so she did.

In 2017, she enrolled in the theatre program at Holland College’s School of Performing Arts. She dug in, honed her skills over the two-year program, and graduated in 2019. 

Her first album, This New Hurricane, produced with Adam Gallant at The Hill Sound, was released in 2020. In 2021, for this album, she was awarded the Music PEI Pop Recording of the Year. Once again working with Adam, she made her sophomore album, Still Awake. It was released in 2022.    

When Harmony House approached her about joining a team of performers to present a new wave of theatre-based music productions, she wasn’t sure what she was getting into. The effects Covid-19 had on the entertainment industry were still very much present and things were uncertain for most performers, but she can now say with certainty that her life changed in extreme and positive ways. She has been a part of the Hunter River venue’s resurgence under the guidance of Mike Ross and Nicole Bellamy, and in it, she has found a supportive and creative community in abundance. 

The success of the theatre has presented Brielle with a reliable and rewarding foundation for her creative life. It has been a place for real career growth and presented her with opportunities she may not have otherwise had. For Harmony House, Brielle conceptualized, wrote, and arranged her first show called The Soundtrack Songbook. This was a major growth moment for her. 

The success of the show Inside American Pie has given Brille Ansems the chance to perform in major markets, with Mirvish Productions presenting the show in Toronto, and internationally with a run of performances in the United Kingdom. 

In the off season from Harmony House, last year she worked with Catherine O’Brien’s theatre group, Young at Heart, a not-for-profit organization focused on giving seniors a space to work in musical theatre. 

Ansems would love to return to the studio for a third album, but for now, she is focused on the upcoming summer series at Harmony House. This summer you can find her on stage in Inside the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, Ladies of the Canyon, Behind the Veil, and Inside American Pie.