Portland Opera Presents ABSENCE, A One-Night-Only Concert Featuring Jazz Great and Celebrated Opera Composer Terence Blanchard

On May 26, 2023, Portland Opera will welcome jazz great and celebrated opera and film composer Terence Blanchard to the company with a special one-night-only concert "Absence." This special event, conducted by Portland Opera's Interim Music Director and Co-Artistic Advisor Damien Geter, will feature an incredible ensemble: the E-Collective, the Turtle Island Quartet, guest soloists soprano Karen Slack, Portland Opera's Co-Artistic Advisor, and baritone Will Liverman, who was last seen with the company as Marcello in La Bohème in 2017, as well as the talented musicians of the Portland Opera Orchestra. This unforgettable cinematic and operatic concert will feature selections from the album "Absence" (Blue Note Records, 2021), as well as the Grammy Award-winning opera Fire Shut Up in My Bones, and other compositions by Blanchard.

"What an honor to share the stage with my dear friend the extraordinary Grammy award-winning trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard," says Karen Slack, Portland Opera Co-Artistic Advisor. "A prolific artist and an American treasure! I am filled with both gratitude and excitement that Portland Opera is presenting him alongside the thrilling E-Collective band, Turtle Island Quartet and the magnificent baritone Will Liverman. This promises to be a night the city of Portland won't forget!"

Terence Blanchard has been a consistent artistic force for making powerful musical statements concerning painful American tragedies-past and present. He stands tall as one of jazz's most-esteemed trumpeters and defies expectations by creating a spectrum of artistic pursuits.

A seven-time Grammy Winner and twice Oscar-nominated film composer, Blanchard becomes 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 is also heralded as a two-time opera composer whose Fire Shut Up in My Bones is based on the memoir of celebrated writer and New York Times columnist Charles Blow. The Metropolitan Opera premiered Fire Shut Up in My Bones on September 27, 2021, to open their 2021-22 season in New York, making it the first opera composed by an African American composer to premiere at the Met. The recording of those performances received a 2023 Grammy award for "Best Opera Recording." The New York Times labeled Blanchard's opera "inspiring," "subtly powerful" and "a bold affecting adaptation of Charles Blow's work." Of the historical moment, Blanchard said, "I don't want to be a token, but a turnkey."

Blanchard's first opera, Champion, with a libretto from Pulitzer Prize Winner Michael Cristofer, premiered to critical acclaim in 2013 at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and starred Denyce Graves. Champion opened at the Met this month.

Blanchard's beautiful, provocative, inspiring jazz recordings undergird all of these projects. The same holds true now as it did early in his career in 1994 when he told DownBeat: "Writing for film is fun, but nothing can beat being a jazz musician, playing a club, playing a concert."

From his expansive work composing the scores for over 20 Spike Lee projects over three decades, ranging from the documentary When the Levees Broke to the latest Lee film, Da 5 Bloods, Blanchard has interwoven beautiful melodies that created strong backdrops to human stories like Regina King's One Night in Miami; Kasi Lemmons' Eve's Bayou and Harriet; George Lucas' Red Tails; the critically acclaimed drama series Perry Mason; the National Geographic limited series Genius: Aretha; Apple TV's docuseries They Call Me Magic (for which Blanchard received his second Emmy nomination); and Gina Prince Bythewood and Viola Davis' The Woman King.

In his thirtieth year as a recording leader, Blanchard delivers "Absence," a collaboration with his longtime E-Collective band and the acclaimed Turtle Island Quartet, which received Grammy nominations in November 2021 for Best Instrumental Jazz Album and Best Improvised Jazz Solo for Blanchard.

You can find additional information about Absence in Toi Toi Toi, Portland Opera's season magazine, including cast biographies and a piece by Interim Music Director and Co-Artistic Advisor Damien Geter. In addition, the awesome librarians at Multnomah County Library have curated a reading list in support of the audience experience for this opera, which can be found here.

Portland Opera appreciates the ongoing support of our generous donors, The Collins Foundation, James F. and Marion L. Miller Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Oregon Arts Commission, Oregon Community Foundation, Regional Arts and Culture Council, including support from the City of Portland, Multnomah County, and the Arts Education & Access Fund, special support from The CARES Act Coronavirus Relief Fund, and The Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) program.