Trumpet Player Terence Blanchard To Co-Headline Tour with Branford Marsalis in 2011
GRAMMY-WINNING COMPOSER/TRUMPET PLAYER
TERENCE BLANCHARD TO CO-HEADLINE TOUR WITH BRANFORD MARSALIS SPRING 2011
New Orleans, Louisiana. In what is certain to be one of the most highly anticipated jazz tours of 2011, Terence Blanchard and Branford Marsalis are set to perform a series of 12 dates across the country on a rotating double-bill featuring both of their bands. The tour will take-in such cities as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Minneapolis and Atlanta. This unprecedented coupling of two modern-day jazz heavyweights will kick-off February 25th
(see www.TerenceBlanchard.com for a complete listing of dates and venues).
Blanchard recently completed the score for Guy Moshe’s adventure thriller, “Bunraku,” starring Demi Moore, Woody Harrelson, Josh Hartnett and Ron Perlman, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. “Buraku” has been hailed as a creative tour-de-force, combining the aesthetics of a futuristic samurai film and spaghetti western with a stylish blend of neo-noir expressionism. Blanchard’s music was also recently seen in Spike Lee/HBO’s If God’s Willing And The Creek Don’t Rise, commemorating the fifth anniversary of the Hurricane Katrina disaster and the sequel to the critically-acclaimed 2006 film, “When The Levees Broke.” The film shows the current state of Blanchard’s native New Orleans five years after Hurricane Katrina, and follows the lives of several individuals and their families in the aftermath of one of the worst disasters to occur in U.S. history. Blanchard won a Grammy for his 2007 CD “A Tale of God’s Will (A Requiem for Katrina),” which included tracks from Levees.
Blanchard is currently at work on an original production for Opera St. Louis, a project that he has been commissioned to create that will premiere in 2012; an orchestral piece that he has been commissioned to write for the Louisiana Philharmonic (“Concerto For Roger Dickerson”) that is slated to premiere February 20ll, and scoring for the upcoming George Lucas/Anthony Hemingway feature film, “Red Tails.”
Blanchard’s latest CD, “Choices,” was released by Concord Jazz in 2009 to widespread critical acclaim. Recorded in New Orleans at the Ogden Museum Of Art — itself a survivor of Hurricane Katrina — “Choices” addresses the choices we all make in life – both as a society and on a personal level. Guest artists on “Choices” include writer, speaker, educator and activist Dr. Cornel West and singer, musician and composer Bilal. West performs spoken word pieces on the album with Bilal providing vocals on several of the tracks.
Terence Blanchard has established himself as one of the most influential jazz musicians and film score masters of his generation, a member of a jazz legacy that has shaped the contours of modern jazz today. With more than 29 albums to his credit as a musician, Blanchard is a four-time Grammy Award winner and multiple nominee. As a film composer, Blanchard has more than 50 scores to his credit and was also nominated for a Golden Globe.
As Artistic Director of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, which he was instrumental in relocating from Los Angeles to New Orleans, Blanchard works with students in the areas of artistic development, arranging, composition and concert programming. He also participates in master classes around the world as well as local community outreach activities in his beloved hometown of New Orleans.