SFJAZZ Gets New Director

[BFrank]

NYT
Terence Blanchard, Pushing Jazz Forward From a New Perch
The trumpeter and composer follows the premiere of two Met operas with an appointment as executive artistic director of SFJazz in San Francisco and a Jazz Masters honor.

By Giovanni Russonello
Sept. 6, 2023
Two big announcements came down recently about the trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard — both monumental, neither one a surprise.

In June, the National Endowment for the Arts announced that Blanchard, 61, would receive a 2024 Jazz Masters fellowship, the highest lifetime-achievement honor available to a United States-based improviser.

Then a month later, as if a reminder that this lifetime still has a few major chapters ahead, the nonprofit organization and performance center SFJazz named Blanchard its executive artistic director. Hardly any other musician has so solid a grasp on the scope of what’s going on in jazz today — and no institution is as committed to reflecting, even goading, its growth.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/06/arts/music/terence-blanchard-sfjazz.html

[kh1958]

Excellent choice.