Battistelli to play MercyMe’s Roadshow in Colorado Springs

Francesca Bat­tis­tel­li will per­form in Col­orado Springs’ World Are­na with Mer­cyMe’s Road­show on Sun­day, March 21. No tick­ets required. $10 at the door. Doors at 4:30 p.m. Show 6 p.m. Pho­to spe­cial to The Den­ver Post

Francesca Bat­tis­tel­li seemed des­tined to make her liv­ing on Broad­way. Her par­ents, Mike and Kate Bat­tis­tel­li, met while work­ing on the nation­al tour of “The King and I,” star­ring Yul Bryn­ner, and their love of the­ater nat­u­ral­ly flowed to their daugh­ter.

Francesca grew up lis­ten­ing to Broad­way show tunes, while tak­ing dance and train­ing for musi­cal the­ater. But as a teenag­er liv­ing in Orlan­do, Fla., Francesca found her pas­sion in the music side of enter­tain­ment. She began play­ing gui­tar and start­ed an all-girl pop trio called Bel­la that toured var­i­ous House of Blues and Hard Rock venues in the south.

“It was a fun cou­ple of years,” Francesca said of the group that blend­ed her singing and danc­ing tal­ents. “I learned a lot, and it was a great expe­ri­ence.”

While enrolled at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cen­tral Flori­da, Bat­tis­tel­li kept her fin­gers in the music while earn­ing a bachelor’s degree in Eng­lish.

“I put out an inde­pen­dent record (“Just a Breath”) and played any cof­fee­house that would have me,” she said with a chuck­le. “Then right after col­lege, I moved to Nashville, and all these doors start­ed open­ing for me, and I was able to walk right through them.”

By the time Bat­tis­tel­li turned 24 this year, her debut album “My Paper Heart” had gar­nered a Gram­my nom­i­na­tion and five Dove Award nom­i­na­tions, includ­ing female vocal­ist of the year and new artist of the year, along with her songs, “I’m Let­ting Go,” “Free to Be Me” and “It’s Your Life” being used on tele­vi­sion series includ­ing ABC’s “Extreme Makeover” and NBC’s “The Biggest Los­er.” And she points to her the­ater back­ground as cru­cial to her suc­cess.

“A lot of artists who write songs and sing aren’t so com­fort­able on stage,” she explained. “I’m just so blessed that I had that ear­ly expe­ri­ence on the stage. It has helped me be more com­fort­able and be myself when I per­form.”

Free to be — her­self. And to use her­self for musi­cal inspi­ra­tion. Her song “Free to Be Me” came about after she backed into anoth­er car.

“I was dri­ving home after that and I start­ed to write this cho­rus, and when I got home, I was like, ‘Hey this is actu­al­ly pret­ty good.’ It’s about accept­ing your­self for who you are, rather than being too con­cerned about being per­fect,” she explained. “God just wants us to come to him as we are. It’s good for me to hear that myself.”

Bat­tis­tel­li calls her music uplift­ing “soul­ful pop” with influ­ences of jazz and blues artists along with Broad­way great Stephen Sond­heim.

“I set the bar pret­ty high,” she said, adding her influ­ences also include Ste­vie Won­der, Nic­hole Norde­man, John May­er and Sara Bareilles.

Hit­ting that bar seems to be an easy chore for Bat­tis­tel­li, who has expe­ri­enced the Gram­my and Dove award cel­e­bra­tions first­hand. And the dif­fer­ences between the two award shows?

“The Gram­my Awards were great. Being there with Ringo Starr and Bey­once … It was real neat to see the per­for­mances and meet peo­ple in the music indus­try. Where­as the Doves are for our indus­try. I would say, it’s not as com­pet­i­tive as the Gram­mys. It’s more like fam­i­ly.”

A fam­i­ly that has embraced the young singer/songwriter, who is sure to bring more hon­ors to her Chris­t­ian music brethren and genre.

The Rock & Wor­ship Road­show
Mer­cyMe, David Crow­der Band, Fam­i­ly Force 5, Francesca Bat­tis­tel­li, Fee, Rem­e­dy Dri­ve and Side­walk Prophets. $10 at the door, gen­er­al admis­sion, no tick­et required. Doors at 4:30 p.m., show 6 p.m.