Terence Blanchard

About

Terence Blanchard, a New Orleans native, is one of jazz’s most esteemed trumpeters. Blanchard began his career touring with Lionel Hampton’s orchestra and serving as musical director of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. A twice Oscar-nominated film score writer/arranger (most recently for his Spike Lee collaboration on Da 5 Bloods), he is also championed as a two-time opera composer whose Fire Shut Up in My Bones opens New York’s Metropolitan Opera 2021-2022 season; this makes him the first African American to have an opera at the Met. Blanchard is also the Kenny Burrell Chair in Jazz Studies at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music. Blanchard’s latest album, Absence, an homage to saxophonist and composer Wayne Shorter, was released in August 2021.