Composing this score was truly one of the highlights of my film composing career. First, I got to work with Robert Celestino whom I respect tremendously as a director and consider one of my dear friends. We had worked together twelve years ago and I knew then that Bob was a director I wanted to work with again and again. The most important thing in a creative collaboration is to have the trust of the people you work with. With that, I believe a composer is able to create truly original music. Yonkers Joe afforded me the freedom to compose a more artistic type of film score and it’s one of my proudest achievements. The challenges were to merge the two worlds of ‘Joe’ – his life as a dice mechanic, and his responsibilities as a father. Musically, they each needed to have strong identities, and still be connected tonally. It was essential to me that I create a score that drew the audience into this film, and that was authentic to these rich characters. Chris HajianComposer, Yonkers Joe