Rocco D’Ambrosca: 02/07/2009
I was born Rocco Joseph D’Ambrosca, on May 9th, 1988 to Pio and Olga-Lynn D’Ambrosca at Yale New Haven Hospital. My father had moved to this country in 1970 from Italy at the age of 11. My mother was born here, but is also full Italian. My parents met at Archie Moore’s in New Haven, a bar in the neighborhood my father grew up in. I have a younger sister who was born on September 24, 1990 and her name is Gianna.
I’ve grown up my entire life at the same home in East Haven, CT. I attended Deer Run Elementary School, followed by East Haven Academy from 5th grade until 8th grade, and finally Notre Dame High School of West Haven. My childhood was dominated mostly by video games, most notably Nintendo 64, but also Legos and other construction toys. But it wasn’t until I picked up a guitar that I became truly passionate about something.
During high school I decided I wanted to become an Engineer and Inventor to fulfill my love of science and engineering, which I fostered with blueprints for hover boards and jetpacks as young as 2nd grade. I applied exclusively to engineering schools, but finally decided to go to Western New England College in Springfield, MA, a liberal arts school with a strong engineering department.
During my first semester I was finally freed to spend more time and energy on my guitar playing. Without my parents or sister yelling to lower the guitar amp, I was finally able to play freely and see what came out. Within the first few months I had written enough material for an entire album and only more came from there.
Meanwhile, I began to fall out of love with engineering and set my sights on a philosophy major and law school. I intended to finish my bachelor’s degree in philosophy my junior year and go on to Western New England Law School my senior year as part of Western New England’s 3 + 3 Law Program.
After struggling to find band members for two years, I formed my band Rockerific last June. Excited to finally have an outlet for the material I had been writing, I worked all summer to record as much as possible. I posted our songs on our Myspace page where we were discovered by a booking agent in December. Our first show will be next Sunday and I am both very excited and nervous for it. Back on the education front, I took the LSAT in October and December of last year and was just two points shy of the required score for early admission. Having completed my major and only having electives left to complete, I decided to transfer to Southern Connecticut State University to complete my bachelor’s degree and go on to law school from there. After law school I plan to enter politics hopefully becoming a U.S. Senator or Congressman.
RoccoJoe.com 