Terence Oliver Blanchard (born March 13, 1962) is an American jazz trumpeter and composer. He has also written two operas and more than 80 film and television scores. Blanchard has been nominated for two Academy Awards for Original Score for BlacKkKlansman (2018) and Da 5 Bloods, both directed by Spike Lee, a frequent collaborator. Blanchard started his career in 1980, playing in the Lionel Hampton Orchestra while studying jazz at Rutgers University. In 1982, just before he turned 20, he dropped out of Rutgers to join The Jazz Messengers, launching a professional career now in its fifth decade. The Metropolitan Opera in New York staged Blanchard's opera Fire Shut Up in My Bones in its 2021–2022 season, the first opera by an African American composer in the organization's history.
