When I was editing the first episodes of The Faithful Traveler, I made the decision to add music to the series and I asked all of my friends if they knew someone who wrote music. That’s how I met Isabel Marcheselli. She was Isabel Rivera at the time–she’s since met the man of her dreams and gotten married.
We used one of Isabel’s beautiful songs in our episode on the National Shrine of St Rita of Cascia (you can watch it here). Isabel is not only super talented, she’s also one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet, so naturally, we became friends. She helped us as part of our “friend crew” on our fun and crazy shoot at St Patrick’s Cathedral, when ten of our New York friends came out to help us film this amazing cathedral in one day. And we’ve kept in touch since.
Today, I thought it would be fun to introduce you to her and to tell you about a new project she has just released: a book of poetry called Heart’s Eye.
You all know I am a big proponent of supporting the work of talented artists, and Isabel is one of them.
I asked her some questions about her music, her book, and how her life inspired them all.
Welcome, Isabel!
DVG: Tell us a little bit about yourself—who is Isabel Marcheselli, in a nutshell?
Tough question! I’d say a dreamer and a doer.
(DVG: Knowing Isabel, I wholeheartedly agree!)
DVG: How long have you been writing poetry?
Well over twenty years… having started rather young in my teens.
DVG: How long have you been writing music?
Also well over twenty years… I was already attempting to notate music and lyrics about as soon as I touched my first keyboard.
DVG: How did you get interested in music—how did you start playing piano and singing?
Music is not so much one of those things I got “interested in.” You might say it was more a knowledge and experience that I just always felt inside.
I suspect my mom must have listened to tons of it before I was born. I was a very sing-songy kid growing up. Indeed, a veritable walking jukebox, as known by my family and friends! Although there weren’t any outright musicians in my family, my parents did love to sing, hum, dance and make a night of just listening to music – not watching TV or multitasking while listening to music as background noise, but turning off the tube and purely listening to music for its own sake and doing so for hours. We sort of swam inside the music. For me, it wasn’t hard to just sit at the keyboard and start working out melodies and songs, it came easy and excitingly, almost as if I’d been meant to do it since forever. It was just plain old fun, too.
Starting a band was terrifying for me, at first, though. There were plenty of normal self-doubts, but an ex-boyfriend seriously believed in me and my music. I found loyal music partners in my bandmates as we played lots of shows throughout New York City. Once the songs were there for everyone to work on, the rest just naturally fell into place.
DVG: Your group is called Isabel and the Whispers. Who are the Whispers, and why did you decide to call them that?
Great question, Diana! The way song ideas would come to me resembled the turning of a radio dial in my mind until I could hear a station clearly, like whispers growing louder and clearer out of the staticky noise of life. This was especially the case the more I wrote songs and worked on my craft. It all would remind of that Bible story of how God’s voice did not come to Elijah in the loud wind and earthquake but in the little whisper from a cave. So that’s how I was inspired to name my band, Isabel and The Whispers.
DVG: Can you tell us a little bit about the stories behind your music? Who was Josefina? One of my favorite songs of yours is “Dot to Dot,” which we used in our episode on the National Shrine of St. Rita of Cascia. Does that song have a story? Do other songs of yours have stories you’d like to share?
Certainly, I have lots of stories to tell and I’d be happy to tell you about some of my songs off of my CD, Isabel and The Whispers! My pop song, “Josefina,” addresses that little girl that lives inside a woman’s memories all of her life dating from her childhood. In my song, a woman is speaking to that little girl and asking her to sing to her because she is in need of a song that day. It’s one of those blah days when one is in search of inspiration! It came to me in its entirety one day while waiting an eternity for the A train in Manhattan.
“Dot to Dot” is definitely a romantic ballade in origin. Among things, it was inspired by a doodle of dots I once did during a time when I was quite fond of someone. Maybe you can guess what shape my doodle was: a heart!
“High Horse” is another one of my often-requested folk songs inspired by my love of horses. I’m a definite believer in animal therapy and I write more about it in my blog at: https://isabelmarcheselli.wordpress.com/
DVG: How about your poetry: does any of it reflect your life? Can you give us an example?
Very much so… pretty much all of it. Maybe a poem that stands out, in particular, is “Talking to Comet,” a nature poem I wrote as I was wondering about the mysteries of life and love, while honing halter showing techniques to exhibit horses in competition at Cornell. There was something about seeing horses just be their humble, yet stalwart selves that seemed to offer something of a life example to me. That experience of equine therapy is, again, captured in that poem which starts with someone mentally speaking to a horse.
DVG: You say that Heart’s Eye was inspired by The Little Prince, which is one of my favorite books. Tell us about that? How does the little prince speak to you and how did it inspire your poetry?
Indeed, it is my personal response to a quote in that book: “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye.” What’s most important is what’s immaterial. From a poet’s perspective, to me this idea means no one thing. Taking off on the idea, and, along the lines of what Goethe, the German Romantic poet, perceived as an “inner, spiritual eye,” I fuse this artistic notion with my own spiritual belief in striving to behold each other and situations as God sees: with a more spiritual eye. No easy thing without prayers, and lots of them!
DVG: What’s on the horizon for you and your band?
Well, I am working on a book/concert tour and a reunion concert with my band, the latter suggested to me by my friend and bandmate. I will also be writing a second book, at some point, and it may be a sequel to Heart’s Eye or perhaps something entirely different. It’s still brewing in my mind. The Isabel and The Whispers album will soon be re-released, too, hand-in-hand with the publication of Heart’s Eye. I leave the Spirit and muse to inspire me in the days ahead – they are always full of surprises for me!
You can buy Isabel’s book of poems, Heart’s Eye here, or buy Isabel’s music on CDBaby, on amazon or on iTunes.