Who is Terence Blanchard?

Terence Blanchard became the first Black composer whose work was performed by the New York Metropolitan Opera on Monday, Sept. 27, 2021, when the Met Opera returned from its 566 days covid-19 time-out. An audience of about 4,000 watched the performance of “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” the first staged work in the house since March 2020 and the first by a Black composer in the company’s 138 years of history. The return was simulcast live to video screens in Times Square and Harlem’s Marcus Garvey Park._x000D_

What is “Fire Shut Up in My Bones”?

_x000D_”Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” with an all-Black cast, premiered in 2019 at the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and was brought to the Met as part of a co-production that will travel to the Lyric Opera of Chicago in March and Los Angeles Opera in a future season. The final Met performance of “Fire Shut Up” will be broadcast to movie theaters worldwide on Oct. 23, 2021.