The singer/songwriter helps others grow closer to God through music
Story and photography by William Van de Planque | On Mission
GREEN BAY, WI — Aly Aleigha, an indie-folk artist and Catholic worship leader, came to Green Bay to perform at Cup O’ Joy on Saturday, August 30, 2025.
Aleigha, performing solo and acoustically, sang many of her original songs and some of her favorite worship songs. During her performance, she invited all in attendance to pray with her while she sang.
“Prayer is not a performance,” she told the audience.
Aleigha’s Catholic faith has not only been a significant part of her full-time career in music but it also fueled her desire to pursue music ministry.
She grew up the oldest of three daughters in Rice Lake, Wisconsin, and attended Catholic school until high school.
“Our parents’ faith grew alongside ours,” she said. “My mom was confirmed after I was born and had her conversion as we were going through elementary school.”
During high school, she was involved in her local youth ministry and attended multiple Steubenville Youth Conferences, where she said she experienced a call to profound conversion.
“(The conferences) really ignited my faith in a deeper way,” she said. “When I was a teen attending the conferences, seeing the presenters speak such beautiful truth really resonated with me and everyone in the room.”
This past summer, over 500 young people from across the Diocese of Green Bay were able to attend Steubenville Youth Conferences using funds raised by the Raising Vocations Collection.
“Sonar was the worship band at the conferences I attended, and something really struck me about doing ministry like that,” Aleigha said. “I wasn’t a very talented musician, but I was like, ‘I’m going to bring something like that to our church.’”
She began by singing at local Masses during high school.
Aleigha connected with Sonar Worship, who also performed worship music for NET Ministries in the Twin Cities, Minnesota, during her years of attending the youth conferences. After high school, Sonar began inviting Aleigha to sing with them at various NET events in Minneapolis and eventually at the Steubenville Youth Conferences as well, which she has been doing for the past few years.
“(I was) standing on stage, singing praises to the Lord at the very conference and the same location that I had my own conversion,” she said. “Now, I get to be a part of that, helping other people encounter the Lord; it’s a really incredible, full-circle experience.”
Aleigha also participated in Franciscan LEAD, a Steubenville program for high school students, which takes place one week before the Steubenville Youth Conference. Through this program, they learn about Catholic principles of discipleship and evangelization, aiming to become leaders in their local parishes and communities.
The five-day program, facilitated by Franciscan University of Steubenville students and alumni, is what made Aleigha want to go to college there, she said.
Aleigha attended the university in Ohio to pursue a bachelor’s degree in theology and catechetics with a concentration in youth ministry. A full-time music career was not on her mind at the time, she said, but surrounded by musicians on campus, Aleigha was encouraged to pursue it.
“At Franciscan, the music scene was really awesome,” she said. “Everybody was playing guitars in the hallways, singing and praising the Lord everywhere. There were these coffee house performances that anyone could sign up to play at every weekend and some week nights, and it was just super fun.”
Aleigha’s younger sister, Jessica Schissel, was attending Franciscan University of Steubenville at the same time, and the two began playing music together at the weekly open mic nights on campus. Soon after, Aleigha was encouraged by many of her peers and family to record her own music.
“I know you’re not supposed to make deals with the Lord, but I did,” Aleigha said. “I said, ‘I need a banjo player. This is the main song I want to record, and I think it needs a banjo, so if you find me a banjo player, then I’ll do it.’ And he did. I was living next to a guy who played the banjo for the entire year, and he was roommates with the guy who was going to play drums on my album.”
The day of her college graduation in 2015 marked the completion of Aleigha’s first EP, “Jealous Love”, after which she flew home to Wisconsin. The record includes the title track, “Jealous Love,” featuring the banjo player she prayed for, and “Visitation Song,” featuring Schissel.
Aleigha opened her performance at Cup O’ Joy on Saturday with “Jealous Love.”
“A theme of my own prayer and my own ministry (has been) helping people recognize their own giftedness and uniqueness,” she said. “The Lord has crafted you so individually and so uniquely, and the world needs the saint that you are and the saint that you are trying to be, mimicking someone else.”
Growing up, Aleigha recognized her sisters’ talents and felt like she could never be good enough, she said. “And then, the Lord takes you on a roller coaster.”
During college, Aleigha had gone on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land with Jeff Cavins, author and biblical scholar, and Fr. Mike Schmitz, Catholic priest, podcaster and speaker. As soon as the EP was finished, Aleigha’s father sent it to Cavins without her knowing.
“One day while I was driving, I got a call from Jeff Cavins on my phone … I was almost too intimidated to pick up,” she said. “He said, ‘Your dad sent me your CD. It’s incredible, and I want to invite you to sing on the pilgrimages with us to the Holy Land.’”
Aleigha has been on pilgrimage with Cavins and Fr. Schmitz six times now.
Cavins was involved in Relevant Radio and invited Aleigha and her band to play at AbbeyFest in 2016, where she received the Emerging Artist Award sponsored by Cavins and Relevant Radio.
“He’s been an incredible friend and advocate for my music,” she said.
Aleigha has worked with Fr. Schmitz in many other capacities for close to a decade.
During her senior year of college, Aleigha needed to complete an internship for her catechetics degree. She worked with Totus Tuus, a Catholic summer youth program, and was hired by Fr. Schmitz, who also serves as the director of youth and young adult ministry in the Diocese of Duluth and as Newman Center chaplain at the University of Minnesota Duluth.
At the end of the summer, Aleigha was asked to sing at Camp Survive, a five-day junior high camp in the Diocese of Duluth, and has been singing there ever since.
After college, she moved to Duluth to work with Fr. Schmitz in college campus ministry. She also worked as a part-time middle school youth minister at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Rosary.
“I’m very blessed to still be involved heavily in the Diocese of Duluth and Fr. Mike’s ministry,” she said. “He’s so down to earth and so authentic. What you see on the screen is what you get in person, too. And he’s so great to work with.”
Going on pilgrimage, in the United States and abroad, has been a significant part of Aleigha’s spiritual life and faith journey since childhood.
“(Our mother) really drove us in our faith when we were young, and the main reason that her faith was ignited was from a pilgrimage,” she said. “From young ages, my sisters and cousins and I were all brought on these pilgrimages as well.”
Aleigha was able to see the broader Church and different cultures, and her faith was greatly formed by these experiences, she said.
“There’s something really powerful about that broader community,” she said.
In 2017, Aleigha went on a walking pilgrimage known as the Camino de Santiago, or Way of St. James, where she hiked nearly 200 miles through the mountains of Spain. The route that Aleigha took ends at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, where the remains of St. James the Apostle are believed to be buried.
“It’s been years of unpacking what the Lord did in my heart during that time,” she said.
“I (stepped into music full-time) after the Camino,” she said. “I didn’t really do the Camino as a transition-type event, but it ended up being that. It’s been amazing because music has opened me up to do middle school youth ministry and see those kids still, and I’ll go be a part of college campus ministry as well.”
Two songs have come out of her pilgrimage experience in Spain, Aleigha said. One, called “Wait Out The Rain,” was released in April, and the other, called “Camino,” is expected to be released next summer.
Aleigha’s music, especially her lyrics, always has a story behind it. Her first full-length album, “The Labyrinth,” released in 2016, parallels salvation history.
“(It parallels) that with our own journeys, mine specifically, of things that we go through that make us joyful like the garden and hardship; deserts that we find ourselves in,” she said. “So often when we experience hardship, we just want to push through it and get past it as soon as possible, but Jesus didn’t just get through it. He entered into the Cross; he kissed his Cross. He embraced his suffering, knowing that that was going to lead to our wholeness and our salvation.”
For a long time, Aleigha has incorporated the theme of hope through suffering into her music and ministry.
“That song (“The Labyrinth”) and my ministry as a whole for many years has been just an anthem of hope for people,” she said. “Life is messy and there are difficult times; there is hope. That can be a difficult message to hear, especially for people who are in the midst of it.”
After stepping into music full-time, Aleigha signed with Rekindle Records, a faith-based, independent record label based in Chicago.
“I remember being a little hesitant because I heard that being signed to a label could be super helpful for your career, but it also depends who you sign with because people have different visions,” she said.
In their initial conversations, she told Rekindle Records: “I want to stay true to who I am as an artist and where I feel like the Lord is calling me to go. I don’t necessarily need to be the next big Christian pop star.”
Aleigha recorded one song with the label, “Waltz of a Traitor,” but decided to part ways because of the distance from Chicago to Duluth, where she lived at the time.
She spoke about the relationship between Protestant and Catholic artists in Christian music ministry and how contemporary and traditional music work together.
“I think it’s really beautiful to unite the whole body of Christ, and we can all learn from each other in really beautiful ways,” she said. “But of course, there is something that sets us apart as Catholics as well: having the Eucharist as our Source and Summit and our home.”
Singing for Eucharistic adoration is a significant part of Aleigha’s ministry, and the songs she sings within adoration are “a blend of contemporary and traditional,” she said.
“Our Protestant brothers and sisters have created such beautiful praise and worship music — they do that part really well — and we have the richness of our tradition.”
Aleigha closed out her show at Cup O’ Joy with her new single, “Aurora,” a love song released on August 17, 2025, the day of her and her husband’s one-year wedding anniversary.
Now living in Eagle River, Wisconsin, Aleigha enjoys hiking, rock climbing, canoeing, and travel and exploration in general.
“John 10:10 is one of my favorite verses in Scripture — ‘I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly,’” she said. “I strongly believe that (God) has given us this life and this world to be adventurous in whatever way he has put on our hearts.”
Aleigha’s many adventures, including different pilgrimages all over the world, have been a source of inspiration for her music, she said.
“(I enjoy) seeing the uniqueness of each person and each piece of creation that (God) has put before us as an opportunity to see his love for us,” she said.
Aleigha has a lot of gratitude for the many opportunities her work has given her to spend time in prayer, she said.
“I’m incredibly blessed to have a job that puts me before the Blessed Sacrament so often,” she said. “I get to sing for Jesus … and facilitate others’ encounters with the Lord in a deeper way that only music can provide.”
For more information on Aleigha’s music and ministry, visit aly-aleigha.com.
Aleigha will be coming back to the Diocese of Green Bay to perform a concert with a full band with Eucharistic adoration at St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Manitowoc on December 12, 2025.