June 20th - June 22nd, 2025

home sessions, vol. 15 VLOG

home sessions, vol. 15 marks a gathering of friends and family to connect, rehearse, and film 2 songs in my childhood home.

As with any project of this size, there was a lot to do in the months leading up. I had a working draft of both songs and their arrangements but still needed singers, audio engineers, videographers, instrumentalists, and directors – the ultimate squad to pull this off in under 72 hours. I knew it was a huge ask, to learn music beforehand, spend a long weekend in NJ, rehearse and record audio and video for two songs with one rehearsal and people they’d only just met.

I reached out to anyone I knew would be crazy enough to bring this project to life and one text at a time, the team came together. I feel so lucky and grateful to have friends who were determined to come together.

My years spent singing in Northeastern’s a cappella group, Pitch, Please! and running a cappella workshops meant I had a talented roster of vocalists I could reach out to. I asked my close friend, Lora Riehl, to hop on as Music Director because we’d already been working on the harmonies for Losing together and she knew all the singers’ voices whether from her time music directing Pitch, Please! or her work with groups around NJ.

Open gigs in New Jersey introduced me to artists like Tobi Richardson, who started his band Over The Counter and has toured with THE Wu-Tang Clan, and Sho Ishikura who I’d collaborated with on and off since 2020. It was Sho who introduced me to bassist Tom Christy and percussionist Lou Petto, and assured me they would deliver exactly what the sessions needed.

For recording the audio, I worked with longtime collaborator and friend, Rit Nimmagadda and his colleague, another longtime friend, Shaunak Sawant. Rit had been doing live audio engineering across the Mid-Atlantic with the company RDX and his own company, Sonara Productions. He supplied us with everything necessary to record like high-quality wireless mics, speakers, and a mixer. Shaunak, in addition to his role as our audio engineer, also vlogged the weekend, and stepped in front of the camera as the guitarist on Right Time.

For the visuals, I called on singer and Set Director, Jess Garcia, and Director of Photography, Olivia Materetsky, who I knew from my time in Pitch, Please! where we recorded albums and filmed music videos together. Olivia’s natural instinct behind the camera, paired with Jess’s endless creativity, meant I could trust them with my vision and focus on the music.

My worlds collided as artists and musicians from up and down the East Coast came together, some traveling close to 300 miles, to offer their time and skills. The weekend itself was split between rehearsals and recording with one day for each track. Lora ran rehearsals as the Audio and Visual teams transformed my garage and backyard into recording studios and film sets.

Between the practice, prep, and execution, we would bond, problem solve, reflect, and connect. Almost everyone was meeting for the first time but you’d never know it. Walking through my house that weekend you would hear a conversation over camera lenses from one room, with a groovy baseline and Carnatic riffs from another. At the end of Day 1, drinks in hand, sweating through a heat wave, and exhausted from the day, some of us retired to the garage to listen as Rit played back the Right Time recording, some rested in the dining room where Olivia was uploading the day’s footage, others laughed over pizza in the kitchen. You could feel the excitement and adrenaline even through the exhaustion.

What stayed with me most was my family’s support, especially my parent’s. My parents have always been my number one supporter so when I came to them with this idea, they didn’t hesitate to offer my childhood home. Shout out to them for allowing nearly 20 strangers to descend on their home for three days. They sat through two full days of shoots, watching and listening to every take - and I mean that literally. They were front row, seats pulled up and at both shoots. Their support and their genuine desire to be there for all of it is something I’ll carry with me.

With the weekend behind us, there was still so much to do, so many decisions we didn’t even know we’d have to make. For many of us, this was the first project of this size that we’d taken on, which meant learning as we went. How should we organize the sheer volume of tracks? Which takes should we use? How strict should we be with tempo? How do we work within our capacity as we return to our everyday lives? Many lessons learned and many things I'll do differently next time. Despite these challenges, it was spending time on the details that ultimately put the edit in a strong place for the final mix.

That’s when I reached out to Eric Scholz, who I first worked with through Pitch, Please!. Some of the very first a cappella mixes I ever listened to were mixed by him and I knew I could trust his ear to help guide the project toward its final shape.

Once we had a draft mix, we began piecing the video together, creating the album art, editing the vlog, making scores, and finalizing content for the website. Eventually, every piece fell into place and it felt good to move these muscles again.

the demos, the drafts…

right time - demo on soundcloud

I wrote Right Time in the fall of 2020 as a way of expressing the push and pull of my early queer experiences — seeing and feeling so much potential with someone, while knowing nothing would come of it. The song moves back and forth between wishful moments of possibility and reality.

This track was some of my earliest production work with Sho, who helped record the original guitar and solo lines. Later, Elliot von Wendt wrote background vocals, adding movement and contrast to the song. After stepping away from Right Time for nearly two years, I revisited Elliot’s arrangement to make edits and additions. It was while re-recording these new vocal tracks that I realized I wanted to bring my vocal friends together to try it out live.

Losing was inspired by a voice memo from Rit playing his guitar. In addition to the titles he holds on this project, he’s also a damn good guitarist. In this freestyle he shared, I heard a phrase I wanted to hold onto, so I chopped it, looped it, and built the song from there. Within the hour, the lyrics, melody, and harmonies had come together — a surprisingly fast process which is ironic for a song detailing my battles with anxiety. Writing it felt natural, almost instinctive.

What excited me about Losing was how many directions it could go. Lora hopped on to help write the alto part, bringing another level of depth that was missing in this demo. And the bossa-like ending allowed me to reimagine the song with full instrumentation. Those shifts are what ultimately inspired the additions of lower parts like alto and bass as well as percussion.

losing - demo on soundcloud

Dej shared early sketches. Unseen here is an exact replica of the Losing frame that I gave him as reference. I asked him to bring it to focus more on the line work and the setting with no facial expressions which is how we stripped down to the shadow work orange and black version in the 2nd draft.

The album art, made by Dej Medunoye, came together in an unexpected way: I met the artist through TikTok. His then-fiancée posted that he was looking for graphic design work and on a whim I reached out. Dej was the only person in this process I didn’t know personally beforehand and the only one operating from a different time zone which felt risky but he was incredibly easy to work with. I talked through my ideas and he made it happen.

At this point I looped in Lora since she works as a Graphic Designer, and she gave some thoughtful edits on color palette, contrast, typography, and the highlight work Dej already had in one design.

In the end Dej was able to put together some really pretty artwork that I felt captured our weekend and the group that was present.

Thank you to my parents for opening our home for this project. Their continued encouragement to sing, dance, and bring people together will always shape me and my work.

To my community, thank you for showing up with openness and care. Grateful for everyone who showed up and was determined to make this weekend happen.

Collaborator Commentary

“Working on this project was an incredible opportunity to sing with artists who I’ve missed dearly and meet new talented friends! So excited to share our work.” - Nealaksi Maniraja

“This was super fun to be a part of and I can’t wait to collab more with Isha in the future!” - Tobi

“On the first night of filming, I was on set shooting B-Roll for the vlog. Isha created a very professional and collaborative work environment for all involved, where everyone listened to each other and didn’t step on each other’s toes. It was exciting for me to get to meet so many other talented artists, many of whom were or are members of other competitive collegiate a cappella teams.” - Perry Edelman

“This project genuinely brought so much joy to my life. Making music with people I had never met before created this feeling of newness and admiration that let me really observe the talent around me. During this project, I felt like I could just feel the music and sing. It was natural and less calculated. The instruments and voices brought the songs to life, allowing us all to feel the emotions Isha is looking to portray to listeners. I truly believe that the combination of the lyrics and music will make the audience feel what we all felt in those performance moments.” - Maddy Kempler

“I really enjoyed working with Isha & all the singers on this project, it was an absolute joy to lay down the low end for Isha’s composition “Right Time.” The acapella arrangement blew me away and I knew from the second I heard it I wanted to be a part of it.” - Thomas Christy

“I feel so blessed to have been asked to be part of such a special project Isha created. I just love to sing with friends and meet new people with similar interests. This was such an amazing and fruitful weekend - I’m beyond impressed with Isha’s work and the talent shown by the group of people on this project!!” - Mia Martin

“For one, this project was so well thought out. Working with such talented people, from the singers to the sound crew to the camera crew was such a pleasure and privilege and lent me endless artistic insights. My favorite part must’ve been when we were allowed to improvise and add ad-libs; Isha’s songs were perfect but to see how they could become even more so was such a pleasant experience.” - Preethi Chandramohan

“This project was an incredibly impressive undertaking, with live sound and video being recorded at the same time to achieve a unique take on personal growth through audio/visual mediums of art. Having the chance to audio engineer and film behind-the-scenes content for this project was truly insightful, allowing me to capture every moment of this collaborative experience. I want to thank Isha for bringing me on as a collaborator and musician, and I’m so excited for you to see what we all worked so hard to create!” - Shaunak Sawant

“My favorite part of this project was getting to sing and be creative with so many beautiful people!” - Julia Yanosy

“It was truly an honor to spearhead the creative visual elements of these two projects, and an even greater pleasure to sing on them! I’m so grateful to Isha for trusting my vision and valuing my voice, and to the incredible team of musicians and technicians who worked hard to make this come alive. What an incredible collaboration!” - Jess Garcia

“I love the way this project pulled people together and gave them a space to be creative together. The two different songs were such a joy to sing and the fact that we were each able to contribute in our own ways made it that much more special!” - Ananya Krishnan

“Isha’s vision was clear from the start, which made it easy to tap in creatively. Collaborating in real time and shaping the energy together was exactly the kind of flow I love being in. What made this project stand out was how much we accomplished in such a short window — learning the songs and recording both video and audio within just two days, while bringing in different freestyle instrumentalists each day to reimagine the vibe.” - Rit Nimmagadda

“It was a pleasure to work on this project! I always love an opportunity to return to my a cappella roots and capture my closest friends doing what they love. I enjoyed having a heavy hand in the look and feel of the final videos and hope the tracks resonate with viewers as much as they did with me.” - Olivia Materetsky

“I’m happy to be able to advise the last couple stages of this project and bring the audio portion across the finish line. The unique instrumentation and live performance aspects set this apart from the norm, both visually and sonically. My favorite part is being able to listen to where the songs started as demos, and hearing how they ended up being curated, arranged, and shaped for the finished live videos.” - Eric Scholz

“I came with a minimal approach to this music that already had a terrific vocal focus. I brought a box and some choice ear candy. That’s all that was needed.” - Lou Petto

“I really enjoyed the process of making this artwork for Isha, they had a clear direction of what the art should look like from the start, more importantly I enjoyed being able to modify the project real time while interacting with them from literally over 2000 miles away, exploring different colors, fonts and hues to connect the song to the art work, that was amazing!!!” - Medunoye Ayodeji

“My favorite part of this experience was watching everyone lean into the challenge. It was daunting – two music videos in two days, no rehearsals ‘till the day of – but everyone was so talented and collaborative and focused, making beautiful music is easy with people like that.” - Lora Riehl