Terence Blanchard has been a consistent artistic force for making powerful musical statements concerning painful American tragedies – past and present.  A true “Renaissance” man, Blanchard stands tall as one of jazz’s most-esteemed trumpeters and defies expectations by creating a spectrum of artistic pursuits.  Boundary-breaking and genre-defying, Blanchard is recognized globally as a dazzling soloist and a prolific composer for film, television, opera, Broadway, orchestras and for his own ensembles.  In fact, leading theater magazine TheaterMania recently cited Blanchard as “the most exciting American composer working in opera today.” An eight-time Grammy Winner and twice Oscar-nominated film composer, Blanchard became only the second African-American composer to be nominated twice in the original score category at the 2022 Academy Awards, duplicating Quincy Jones’ feat from 1967’s In Cold Blood and 1985’s The Color Purple.  Blanchard’s work has placed him at the forefront of giving voice to human rights, civil rights, and racial injustice, including the 2016 album “Breathless,’’ an elegy for Eric Garner, who was killed by police and whose words, “I can’t breathe,” became a civil rights rallying cry.