“Terence Blanchard knows from experience that an opera that sounds and looks different from the classic repertory can bring new audiences to an old art form. ‘An elderly African American man came up to me’ after a performance of Blanchard’s jazz-infused opera Champion in 2013, the trumpeter/bandleader recalled, ‘and he said: Man, if this is opera, I will come.’ With his latest magnum opus” — Fire Shut Up In My Bones, based on the memoir of New York Times columnist Charles Blow — “Blanchard wants to continue changing popular perceptions about opera — particularly, what stories it can tell, and who does the telling.” – St. Louis Public Radio