Terence Blanchard

About

Also known as: Blanchard, Oliver Blanchard, Terence Belanchard, Terence Blachard, Terence Blanchardt, Terence Blanchart, Terence Blancheard, Terence Oliver, Terence Oliver Blanchard, Terrance Blanchard, Terrence Blanchard

Terence Blanchard is probably best known as Spike Lee's go to composer, having scored most of Lee's films from Jungle Fever in 1991 all the way through BlacKkKlansman and Da 5 Bloods, both of which earned Blanchard Academy Award nominations for Original Score. But the New Orleans trumpeter is far more than a film composer. He cut his teeth as Art Blakey's musical director in the Jazz Messengers after Wynton Marsalis recommended him as a replacement, and his solo debut on Columbia hit No. 3 on the Billboard Jazz chart. His album A Tale of God's Will, a deeply personal response to Hurricane Katrina, won a Grammy for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album in 2008. He has since worked with his group the E Collective, blending jazz with contemporary sounds. His opera Fire Shut Up in My Bones made history at the Metropolitan Opera in 2021 as the first work by an African American composer staged there. On top of all that, he has spent years shaping the next generation of musicians through roles at the Thelonious Monk Institute, Berklee, UCLA, and now SFJAZZ.