Though she’s loved singing all her life, it wasn’t until her freshman year of high school that Brie LeBlanc performed on stage front of an audience for the first time as she sang before the congregation at her church.
It soon led to a realization: as good as singing made her feel in and of itself, she loved the way she could make others feel through song even more.
After graduating high school, LeBlanc moved on to Nicholls State where she now sings with the university’s concert choir, coming together with fellow talented singers to inspire emotions within concert-goers. LeBlanc also writes her own original music and shares her voice on her YouTube channel – and when she hears that her music truly spoke to someone, or offered the uplifting message they needed to hear in a particular moment, it only inspires her to keep going.
“It’s honestly my favorite part,” LeBlanc said. “When someone tells me my music has touched them, it just encourages me to write more and post more.
“Singing for me has always been my outlet to express how I’m feeling. When I’m singing for my church, it’s about how I connect with God and bring glory to Him. And seeing how music I’m singing can affect how other people feel and how they experience God and other things, it really fuels me.”
LeBlanc has been singing “as long as I can remember,” following in the footsteps of her mother who, like Brie, sang her heart out in church for years.
“She really inspired me,” LeBlanc said. “I wanted to use my voice for God like she did.”
Her experience with the concert choir at Nicholls has been a wonderful ride thus far, she said. The Nicholls concert choir performs a variety of choral literature from all historical style periods each semester and performs at least one major work each year. LeBlanc is in her sophomore year at the school and said it did not take long for the choir group to mesh together.
“It’s like one big family,” LeBlanc said. “Singing together brings all of us together and brings a lot of joy to all of us.”
Writing songs and sharing them with others is a different kind of fun for her. LeBlanc actually began her YouTube channel when she was in middle school, though it had been dormant for awhile until she resumed it recently by posting her song “Let go, I’m in control,” conveying a message from God’s point of view as He comforts and lets the listener know He will guide them and lend them peace, they need only trust.
“I felt like this was something God spoke to me and laid on my heart, so I made it into a song,” LeBlanc wrote on her page, underneath the video. “I think this is a message a lot of people need to hear; I know I did. I love you guys and I hope that this touches your heart.”
She said she started the channel to be able to reach others with her music. “Let go, I’m in control” was her first upload since resuming the channel and it received very positive feedback. She said she didn’t plan to post the song initially.
“I started thinking that it could possibly help people,” she said. “And having the response it did, it made me realize that I want to do this. I want to show how music has touched me and touched my life, and I want my music to touch others in the same way I’ve been.”
Great job, Brie!