Terence Blanchard Named Artistic Director of The Henry Mancini Institute

Coral
Gables, FL (March 7, 2011) – Five time Grammy Award winning jazz
trumpeter and film composer Terence Blanchard was named Artistic
Director of the Henry Mancini Institute (HMI), a prestigious program at
the University of Miami Frost School of Music that is training a new
generation of orchestral and jazz artists to create and perform in
mixed-genre, collaborative settings.

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 multi-Grammy Award winner and nominee,
winning last year for “Best Jazz Instrumental Solo” for his performance
on Jeff “Tain” Watts’ project, “Watts.” In 2009, Blanchard won for his
instrumental solo for “Be-Bop” on Live At The 2007 Monterey Jazz
Festival. In addition to receiving the award, Blanchard performed live
on the telecast along with other New Orleans artists including Lil’
Wayne, Allen Toussaint and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, who were all
joined on-stage by singer Robin Thicke. In 2008, Blanchard also won a
Grammy for his CD, A Tale of God’s Will (A Requiem for Katrina), a
beautifully haunting and impassioned song cycle about Hurricane Katrina
and the ravages incurred upon the City of New Orleans and its residents.

As a film composer, Blanchard has more than 50 scores to his
credit and received a Golden Globe nomination for Spike Lee’s 25th Hour.
In 2009, Blanchard loaned his musical voice to Louis the Alligator in
The Princess and the Frog.  He completed the score for Lee’s Miracle at
St. Anna, as well as the soundtrack for Darnell Martin’s Cadillac
Records.  He is currently working on the score for two Broadway plays,
The Mother—— with the Hat, produced by Scott Rudin (“The Social
Network” and “True Grit”) and A Streetcar Named Desire;  George Lucas’
 film about the Tuskegee Airmen entitled, Red Tails;  and a commission
for Opera Theatre of St. Louis. Other film music written by Blanchard
includes Kasi Lemmons’ Eve’s Bayou and Talk to Me, Oprah Winfrey’s Their
Eyes Were Watching God, Tim Story’s Barbershop and Ron Shelton’s Dark
Blue and music for over one dozen Spike Lee films or documentaries.

As
Artistic Director, Blanchard will conduct the Mancini Institute
Orchestra and introduce its musicians to a wide range of musical styles
that will prepare them for the changing world of music they are about to
enter, such as performing and recording the music of iconic film
composers, multi-media recording for television specials, and providing
multi-cultural and multi-style performance and recording opportunities.
 The Mancini Institute Orchestra is comprised of a full orchestra
(strings, woodwinds, brass, percussion), plus an additional complement
of jazz instruments (saxophones, trombones, trumpets), world percussion
and rhythm section instruments (piano, bass, drums, guitar).  The
ensemble also performs in smaller chamber music configurations
throughout the year.

“Terence Blanchard is ideally suited to
lead the Henry Mancini Institute,” says Shelton Berg, dean of the Frost
School of Music.  “He is a brilliant and inspired musician, with almost
an unmatched panoply of skills.  Terence is also a wonderful and
inspired teacher, and he will play a leading role in fostering great
musicians of the future.”

Blanchard will travel to Miami to work
with the Henry Mancini Institute regularly throughout the year.  He
will be supported in his efforts by violinist, arranger and HMI resident
conductor Scott Flavin, and HMI outreach coordinator, Stephen Guerra.

Graduate
students who participate in the program are recruited to become
“Mancini Fellows,” receiving free graduate tuition from the University
of Miami and financial stipends that are funded through private
donations.  The Henry Mancini Institute is the recipient of a John S.
and James L. Knight Foundation Arts Challenge grant, with matching
funding from UM trustee and business leader Adrienne Arsht.

About the Frost School of Music
The
Phillip and Patricia Frost School of Music is a world-class music
institution with 100 faculty members and 700 students located on the
Coral Gables campus of the University of Miami. The mission of the Frost
School of Music is to foster musical leadership by providing an
innovative, relevant, and inspiring education; advance performance,
creativity and scholarship; and enrich the world community with
meaningful outreach and brilliant cultural offerings. The Frost School
is the exclusive home of the Henry Mancini Institute which provides
students with cross-genre performance opportunities in real-world
professional settings, and the Bruce Hornsby Creative American Music
Program which develops the creative skills of talented young
artist/songwriters by immersing them in the diverse traditions of
American songwriting. For more information, visit http://www.music.miami.edu.