Terence Blanchard

Terence Oliver Blanchard was born on March 13, 1962, in the Pontchartrain Park neighborhood of New Orleans, the only child of Wilhelmina and Joseph Oliver Blanchard. His father, a part-time opera singer and insurance manager, started him on piano at five. At eight, after watching trumpet player Alvin Alcorn give a school demonstration, Blanchard switched instruments — drawn by the trumpet's capacity to bend notes like a singer. He studied at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA) under Pulitzer-nominated composer Roger Dickerson and pianist Ellis Marsalis Jr., alongside fellow students Wynton and Branford Marsalis, with whom he attended summer band camps. After a scholarship to Rutgers University in 1980, where he toured with the Lionel Hampton Orchestra, Wynton Marsalis personally recommended him as his replacement in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers in 1982. Blanchard became the band's musical director, recording five albums alongside fellow New Orleanian Donald Harrison Jr.

Blanchard launched his solo recording career in 1991, and beginning with Spike Lee's School Daze (1988) became the director's primary collaborator, scoring Malcolm X, 25th Hour, BlacKkKlansman, and Da 5 Bloods — earning Oscar nominations for the latter two. His opera Fire Shut Up in My Bones, based on New York Times journalist Charles Blow's memoir, premiered at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis in 2019 and opened the Metropolitan Opera's 2021–22 season — the first opera by a Black composer in the Met's 138-year history. A second Blanchard opera, Champion, premiered at the Met the following season. Hurricane Katrina destroyed his family home in Pontchartrain Park; his and his mother's return is captured in Spike Lee's documentary When the Levees Broke, for which Blanchard composed the score. He serves as executive artistic director of SFJAZZ and remains a tireless advocate for jazz education and the city that made him.