Marcella Puppini was born in Bologna, Italy. She started playing the piano aged 5, and dremed of becoming an opera singer.

At the age of 18, having completed her A levels in Classics (Ancient Greek, Latin, Italian Literature and Art History), Marcella moved to London to study at Central St Martins School of Art.

Having acquired a Fashion degree, Marcella's next move was to cut her teeth in the employment of Vivienne Westwood, where she spent two years.

But Marcella's true love was always music, and so in 1999 she left the Fashion world and embarked on a degree course at Trinity College of Music, studying Jazz Performance and Composition.

 

This is where her career took a varied and sometimes colourful turn: while waitressing in Soho she met DJ Rich B, with whom recorded the gay Club Classic "Revolution", which she performed at various PAs in clubs such as The Fridge in Brixton and Essential in Manchester.

 

Then, while enjoying quite a successful Jazz singing career Marcella found herself irresistibly drawn towards the alternative performance Art scene. It was there that she began meeting like-minded people, such as Marisa Carnesky (who invited her to perform as one of the ghouls on her Ghost Train at Glastonbury Festival in 2005), The Whoopee Club, for whom she has collaborated as Musical Director on some big Burlesque productions and Duckie.

 

In September 2004, Marcella started a close harmony group called The Puppini Sisters.

 

The idea was to have fun, but pretty soon the Puppini Sisters started getting noticed and things snowballed very quickly.

 

Nearly four years later, and with a gold disc under her belt for sales of over 100,000 copies of Betcha Bottom Dollar, Marcella Puppini decided to return to a project that she'd had to abandon for a while: The Forget me nots: an all girl orchestra fronted by Marcella on vocals and accordion, and comprising of string quartet, trombone, bass clarinet and percussion. A cross between Kurt Weill, Nick Cave and Edith Piaf, they perform Marcella's dark-hued compositions dressed as decayed dolls.