With the release of her first single, I Surrender, local musician Solange Legal is learning to share her relationship with God with others while following a lifelong dream to record her own music. As a Metis woman, she is also one of the few professional Indigenous artists making contemporary praise and worship music.
Legal, a mother of five who attends St. Clare of Assisi and Our Lady of Fatima in Coquitlam, said she has wanted to record music for a long time.
“It’s been a dream I’ve always had in the back of my mind,” she told The B.C. Catholic. “But when I got married and we started having our kids and our family, I figured I had traded one dream for another.”
A honeymoon baby was the first sign, and for the time at least, she placed her musical ambitions aside to focus on family.
“Honestly, I was waiting for God to give me the inspiration and the go ahead,” she said. “But the timing was never right.”
She picked up some work as a piano teacher and focused on growing her family.
However, she kept on top of her development as a musician and took voice lessons. Then, during the pandemic, a former classmate suggested she take online classes through Baldwin Wallace University in Ohio.
The program connected her with faculty members at the top of their fields and she had the opportunity to do one-on-one sessions with various instructors. Among those she knew she wanted to work with was her future producer, Nashville songwriter and music producer Marty Lamain, an expert in contemporary Christian music.
Musical education is goal-oriented, and early on, Lamain asked her why she was there. Why was she pursuing music?
Legal told him she had written some songs she hoped to record one day but had been struggling to find local Fraser Valley musicians to work with. After showing the songs to Lamain, she was surprised when he asked what she thought of his producing her music.
“I hadn’t considered that was even an option,” she said,“So I told him I would pray about it.”
It felt like this was the nudge from God she had been waiting for. “It was almost as if I could feel God talking,” she said.
Nashville is a hub for modern music, so it’s remarkable for a musician to make it there, especially on their first outing.
Legal said weeks were spent preparing and ensuring that the songs were as ready as possible for the studio. Ultimately, she was in Nashville for a week, and three days in the studio.
The experience was formative and uplifting. “The people there were absolutely amazing,” she said. “When I walked into the room, meeting the other musicians: it was like walking into a group of friends – an insanely talented group of friends.”
Her journey as a musician started with her father, a lifelong musician who played in a rock-country band. Some of her earliest memories are of lying against an amplifier and falling asleep with the vibrations of the music. She wrote I Surrender during the pandemic while her father was losing his battle with cancer.
“There was a lot going on at the time – I just couldn’t really help it overflowing into my music,” she said. “A lot of my songs and of my music are really just an overflow of my prayer life.”
She had just begun saying the Surrender Novena by Servant of God Father Dolindo Ruotolo, who was once the spiritual director of St. Padre Pio.
She loves the final line of the prayer: “Jesus I surrender everything to you. You take care of everything,” she said. “It’s something I can recall throughout the day,” and that is ultimately where the song came from.
Surrender to the will of God is not an uncommon theme for a praise and worship song, but Legal hopes her song offers a different perspective.
“A lot of surrender songs that we hear are very contemplative. They are slower,” she said. “They are about the process of surrendering.” Instead, she wanted to focus on what happens after surrendering.
“Once you actually surrender it’s really joyful; it’s light – there is a lot of peace. I wanted to focus on all the good things that come from it,” she said.
Her choice of genre – praise and worship music – is rooted in her understanding that music is a tool for drawing us closer to God. Regardless of the genre of music, from contemporary to traditional, she believes what’s important is “what is drawing you to God.”
Legal works for the Archdiocese of Vancouver on Indigenous reconciliation issues and says the relationships she has built through her work have been a blessing. I Surrender was released in time for National Indigenous People’s Day on June 21, but as important as her Metis heritage is to her, she didn’t learn about it until elementary school. Upon reflection, she realized it had always been there, transmitting a particular cultural affinity for music and togetherness in her family.
“Growing up I didn’t know I was Metis,” she said. “My hunch – I don’t know this for sure – is that it was safer to not be associated with being Indigenous. My parents didn’t know. It wasn’t passed down. I don’t know exactly when it happened.”
She said she sometimes struggles to engage with her Metis heritage because it’s not something organic. Still, she finds value in transmitting culture through things like food or music.
“Music is very much a part of the culture for Metis people and French people,” she said. “People gather to sing together. That was something we always had, and still have in family and friend circles today.”
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