The Exchange (2014/2011)

The Exchange began as a prose memoir, set in my family’s humble ancestral home in the Belmont area of Little Italy in the Bronx, on a morning on which something transformative happened: my brother returned from a combat deployment to Iraq, reaching her bedside only hours before her passing. I then set this oral history to music, as a performance piece (2011). The version here recasts the piece on film, in collaboration with Mark DeChiazza, documenting the musical performance while interweaving home movies and family photographs. It’s a tribute to the Italian-American immigrant experience, the neighborhood, and the house itself.