Giselle

Singer Giselle Bellas, on a break from the opera world, let her pop voice soar at Pianos in the Lower East Side Friday night.
The soprano, who performs as Giselle, had a breakout year in 2015 going into the studio to sing opera for Louis C.K. on the latest season of his popular, Emmy-winning surreal comedy series "Louie.” But it almost didn't happen.
"I was asleep and they called me 10 times. Luckily I finally woke up and got to the studio," Giselle says of the fateful phone calls from her producer, Adam Tilzer, who's also the sound engineer on "Louie."
The comic sang some lyrics into his phone, then left her with his show's band, SweetPro, at Hell's Kitchen's Avatar Studios to create the unnerving but hilarious tune "Diarrhea."
"That diarrhea song really confirmed that this is what I should be doing," she laughed.
Music came early to the Orlando, Fla., native. Giselle's mother, who immigrated to the United States from Cuba, did all she could to support her daughter's dreams.
"She was a waitress most of my life growing up and did everything she could to make sure I could go to the best music schools, take private voice lessons and do the things she wasn't able to do growing up poor in Miami," Giselle says. "I wouldn't be here without her."
The singer was attending the Music Conservatory at the New World School of the Arts in Miami when she cut short her degree to pursue opera in the Big Apple. She went on to perform solo at Carnegie Hall before transferring to the renowned New School.
Her mother wasn't too thrilled with her big move at the time, Giselle said, but she couldn't be prouder now.
The episode with the now famous "Diarrhea" song premiered just before Mother's Day.
"That was the best Mother's Day present," said her mother, Dulce Cañaveral. "That's all I needed."
Giselle has her fingers crossed to continue working with C.K., whom she hailed as a genius.
"I've never met anyone who doesn't have a music degree who can tell me something in such concise words and I get it," she said of the funnyman, who's currently on an extended hiatus from his show.
Giselle's EP "Change Me" will debut in the next couple of months, with her first single, "Proof" set to be released on Feb. 5, and she has started playing shows with members of SweetPro.
She performs Jan. 22 with a full band at Pete's Candy Store in Brooklyn. - Thomas Levinson (NY Daily News)

Last Thursday’s Louie was like a dream sequence from Six Feet Under, laced with LSD, dead babies, and diarrhea. Coincidentally, a song about dead babies and diarrhea, though not LSD, played over the end credits. In the best one-off musical moment since Louie shat in Hitler’s mouth, Giselle Bellas lent her pipes to, well, I’m not sure what the warbling track is called, so let’s go with “Dead Baby Diarrhea,” which is also the name of Oklahoma’s worst crust-punk band.
Louis C.K. is our Nat King Cole - Josh Kurp (Uproxx.com)

http://www.nbc.com/late-night-with-seth-meyers/video/louis-ck-the-story-behind-the-louie-diarrhea-song/2865262?onid=147636#vc147636=1 - Late Night with Seth Meyers

You may not know the name Giselle Bellas, but you may have heard her sing on "Louie."

In the FX comedy starring Louis C.K., Orlando opera singer Bellas warbled "Please S--- on My Dreams" in a May episode. Salon described Bellas as "the winsome voice" performing "the completely insane song."

You can see Bellas on "Artisodes" at 8 p.m. Thursday on WUCF-Channel 24, Orlando's PBS station. The program focuses on the commitment of Bellas, a Dr. Phillips High School grad, to educate young musicians and bolster students at her alma mater.

"What I love about opera is it's bigger than life, it incorporates all art forms," she says. "There's something about singing without a microphone over an orchestra that is just incredible. I mean who does that? So I knew when I saw it, I'm like, I wanna do this. That is pretty cool."

Her website notes that she was born in Miami to Cuban immigrants and cites her interest in a range of music from Latin, jazz and oldies to classical. She is also a songwriter, and her debut EP is called "Change Me."

"Artisodes" also features abstract artist Santiago Escobar of Eau Gallie High School as the program's Artist of the Week. - Hal Boedeker (Orlando Sentinel)

Since that fateful call made by Giselle’s producer Adam Tilzer, who is also the sound engineer on LOUIE, Giselle has turned in performances on six LOUIE episodes collaborating with Louis C.K. and SweetPro and singing tunes that show off her vocal versatility, 4-octave range and sense of humor.

“I did all the female vocals for the show,” Giselle says on a coffee break at a Jersey City bagel shop. “For one scene, I had to scream ‘Why? Why?’ over and over in the style of a French woman.”

Classically trained, Giselle began her music studies when she was a kid growing up in Orlando, Florida, with her single mom who raised her on a waitress’s earnings, taking extra jobs to keep food on the table and music in Giselle’s life.

“She sold clothing out of her car so she could buy me a piano,” Giselle says.

That sacrifice seems to have paid off big time. Given a full opera scholarship, Giselle attended the Music Conservatory at the New World School of the Arts in Miami. She performed solo at Carnegie Hall and then transferred from the New World School to The New School in Manhattan where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Literature.

Her opera credits include roles in HANSEL AND GRETEL, DON GIOVANNI, L’ELISIR D’AMORE, LE NOZZE DI FIGARO, L’AMICO FRITZ, and LA BOHÈME. That was back when Giselle had set her sights on an opera career, performing all the great lyric soprano parts in opera houses all over the world. She even held a job at the Met gift shop in Manhattan hunting down obscure opera recordings for customers while soaking up the opera scene

“I was surrounded by opera,” Giselle says. “I would go backstage and watch performances. But opera took away my swagger. It is a very rigid world and I felt I was never good enough.”

Giselle decided to break from the constraints of the opera world when during an audition, she was grilled more about her blue nail polish than her work as a singer. When Giselle started recording music for the LOUIE show, her singing career took a different trajectory, she says, and the experience helped her regain her swagger.

“I call it my music evolution,” Giselle says. “I’m a little more ‘ballsy’ now.”

That ‘ballsiness’ includes collaborating with members of SweetPro and recording her own music; Giselle’s debut EP comes out soon. Community-minded, she volunteers with the Jersey City Youth Foundation and has sung “The Star-Spangled Banner” at several events sponsored by the Jersey City Mayor’s Office. Recently, she made a non-exclusive agreement with Joma Music Group which will be promoting her songs to TV and film projects.

“They put songs on TV shows like ‘Scandal’,” Giselle says.

Will she be adding Season 6 of LOUIE to her fall schedule? It’s too soon to tell, she says. Still, fingers are crossed and hopes are high. She describes Louis C.K. as a sensitive genius and it seems her work on LOUIE has not only given her the opportunity to create with one of the greatest comics of our time, it inspired her to write and sing her own tunes far from the world of opera.

“(My songs) are Pop, but not Bubble Gum Pop,” Giselle says. “More like Pop with a message, like Leslie Gore’s ‘You Don’t Own Me’ and tunes by Adele and Peggy Lee. My songs are more like what Pop used to be.” - Sally Deering (River View Observer)