Grammy Award-winning jazz trumpeter Terence Blanchard is one of the most prominent brass players, bandleaders, and recording artists of his generation. Blessed with a warm yet often fiery trumpet sound and an ear for deep harmonic sophistication, Blanchard is a standard-bearer for the searching post-bop style of his predecessors, including Miles Davis, Woody Shaw, and Booker Little. An impressive “Young Lion” in his early days with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, he developed over time into a mature bandleader and a highly regarded film composer.

Born on March 13, 1962 in New Orleans, Louisiana, Terence Oliver Blanchard was an only child to parents Wilhelmina and Joseph Oliver Blanchard. He began playing piano by the age of five, switched to trumpet three years later, and played alongside childhood friend and fellow New Orleans native Wynton Marsalis in summer band camps. While in high school, he took extracurricular classes at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts with Roger Dickerson and Ellis Marsalis. From 1980 to 1982, Blanchard studied under Paul Jeffrey and Bill Fielder at Rutgers University in New Jersey while touring with Lionel Hampton’s orchestra. In 1982 Blanchard replaced Wynton Marsalis (under his recommendation) in Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, working in that band until 1986 as lead soloist and musical director. He then co-led a prominent quintet with saxophonist Donald Harrison, recording a handful of albums for the Concord, Columbia, and Evidence record labels in five years, including 1983’s New York Second Line, 1984’s Discernment, and 1988’s Black Pearl.

Also during this period, he developed a fruitful working relationship with director Spike Lee. Having first played on the soundtracks to several of Lee’s films, including Mo’ Better Blues and Do the Right Thing, Blanchard then composed the music for many of Lee’s subsequent films, including Jungle Fever, Malcom X, Clockers, Summer of Sam, 25th Hour, Inside Man, and the Hurricane Katrina documentary When the Levees Broke for HBO. With over 40 scores to his credit, Blanchard is one of the most sought-after jazz musicians to ever compose for film.

In the fall of 2000, Blanchard was named artistic director of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Keeping up with his love of live performance and touring, Blanchard also maintained a regular studio presence, delivering albums like 2000’s Wandering Moon, 2001’s Let’s Get Lost, and 2003’s Bounce. Produced by pianist Herbie Hancock, 2005’s Flow received two Grammy nominations. Also in 2005, Blanchard was part of pianist McCoy Tyner’s ensemble that won the Grammy in the Best Jazz Instrumental Album category for Illuminations. The trumpeter also took home the Grammy Award for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album for 2007’s A Tale of God’s Will (A Requiem for Katrina). By April of 2007, the Monk Institute announced its Commitment to New Orleans initiative, which included the relocation of the program to the campus of Loyola University in New Orleans, spearheaded by Blanchard.

In 2015, Blanchard followed up once again on Blue Note with the electric fusion and R&B-infused Breathless. Featuring backing from Blanchard’s band the E-Collective, the album also included contributions from vocalist PJ Morton. Returning to film work, he supplied the original score for director Taylor Hackford’s 2017 film Comedian. Joining Blanchard on the soundtrack were pianist Kenny Barron, tenor saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, alto saxophonist Khari Allen Lee, bassist David Pulphus, and drummer Carl Allen. In 2018, Blanchard was named a USA Fellow, and composed the score to Spike Lee’s film BlacKkKlansman, which won him a Grammy Award. He also released the concert album Live with his E-Collective. Returning to film work, Blanchard scored the 2019 Harriet Tubman biopic, Harriet.

Ruth A. Felt started San Francisco Performances in 1979 shortly after moving to the Bay Area from New York. In 1980, San Francisco Performances began with pianist André Watts appearing in the brand-new Davies Symphony Hall. The season offered seven concerts. Upon her retirement after thirty-six years, the 2015-16 season boasted 200 artists and programs.

Felt developed San Francisco Performances by building relationships with world-class artists who would return again and again. An esteemed arts presenter, she is responsible for the local recital debuts of cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinists Anne-Sophie Mutter and Gidon Kremer, pianists Evgeny Kissin, András Schiff, Mitsuko Uchida, and Ivo Pogorelich, soprano Dawn Upshaw, and many more.

She established numerous musical residencies and set up a community education program, which covered the spectrum of ages and socio-economic groups in the Bay Area. Most notably among these programs are the Saturday morning and evening adult music performances with lectures and demonstrations in San Francisco and Berkeley. Conversations and performances in the low-income Mission District at the Community Music Center, presentations of music and dance in the poorest of public schools as well as at specialty music schools, and performances with African American community groups in Oakland which all introduced the Bay Area to music and dance of the highest quality.

Jake Heggie is the composer of the operas Dead Man Walking, Moby-Dick, It’s A Wonderful Life, If I Were You, Great Scott, Three Decembers and Two Remain, among others. He has also composed nearly 300 songs, as well as chamber, choral and orchestral works. The operas – most created with Gene Scheer or the late Terrence McNally – have been produced on five continents. Dead Man Walking (McNally) has been recorded twice and in 2019 received its 70th international production, making it the most-performed American opera of our time. New York’s Metropolitan Opera recently announced that it will produce Dead Man Walking in a bold new production by director Ivo van Hove, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Moby-Dick (Scheer) was telecast throughout the United States as part of Great Performances’ 40th Season and released on DVD (EuroArts). Great Scott was a 2019 Grammy Award nominee for Best New Composition, Classical. The composer was awarded the Eddie Medora King prize from the UT Austin Butler School of Music and the Champion Award from the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus. A Guggenheim Fellow, Heggie has served as a mentor for the Washington National Opera’s American Opera Initiative and is a frequent guest artist at universities, conservatories and festivals throughout the USA and Canada. INTONATIONS: Songs from the Violins of Hope (Scheer) recently received a premiere and live recording. Upcoming are Songs for Murdered Sisters, a song cycle to new poems by Margaret Atwood, and Intelligence  (Scheer, Zollar), a new opera for the Houston Grand Opera.  jakeheggie.com

Countertenor John Holiday has established himself as “one of the finest countertenors of his generation” (Los Angeles Times). His voice has been praised as “a thing of astonishing beauty” (New Yorker), “arrestingly powerful, secure and dramatically high” (Wall Street Journal), “exceptional [and] strong…even in its highest range” (The New York Times) and “timeless” (Washington Post). Holiday’s unique voice and powerful story have been the subject of profiles in The New Yorker, CNN’s Great Big Story, Los Angeles Times, and more.

2021-22 is a season of exciting debuts for Holiday, beginning with his debut at the Hollywood Bowl under the baton of Gustavo Dudamel in an all-Gershwin program with the Los Angeles Philharmonic; followed by his anticipated Metropolitan Opera debut in Matthew Aucoin’s Eurydice as Orpheus’s Double under the baton of Yannick Nézet-Séguin; as well as his debut with the New York Philharmonic in Handel’s Messiah under the baton of Jeannette Sorrell; and capping off the season with his debut at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Barrie Kosky’s production of Agrippina in the role of Nerone. Holiday returns to The Barbican for a program of sacred and secular works by Vivaldi, and he will also reprise his signature role of the Refugee in Jonathan Dove’s Flight with Utah Opera and The Dallas Opera.

An acclaimed concert singer, Holiday has performed at world-renowned venues such as Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, London’s Barbican Center, and the Philharmonie de Paris. His career highlights have included a tour with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic; the Sorceress in Barrie Kosky’s production of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, and the world premiere of Matthew Aucoin’s Eurydice as Orpheus’s Double at the Los Angeles Opera; the world premiere of Daniel Bernard Roumain’s We Shall Not Be Moved with Opera Philadelphia and the Dutch National Opera; title role in Xerxes at the Glimmerglass Festival; and Caesar in Handel’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto at Wolf Trap Opera. In addition to the traditional concert performances and recitals, Holiday has curated The John Holiday Experience (JHE) to showcase his affinity and talent for many different genres that includes classical, pop, jazz, and R&B. He has performed the program on a national scale, bringing it to Dallas, Des Moines, and Dayton, with plans to continue the eclectic evening of song in his upcoming seasons.