By Mimi Sells
January 16, 2025

When the Opera Fire Shut Up in My Bones premiered in 2021 at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, it broke new ground in the opera pantheon. It was the first work at the Met written by an African American composer, the acclaimed jazz trumpeter Terence Blanchard.
On Sunday, January 19 at the Conrad Prebys Hall in La Jolla Music Society, the audience will get a taste of this breakthrough opera experience as an “Opera Suite in Concert” presented by the La Jolla Music Society.
Based on the bestselling autobiography by New York Times Columnist Charles Blow, Fire Shut Up in My Bones detailed his difficult, southern upbringing. It is both a harrowing coming of age story and a tale of redemption. Musical giant Terence Blanchard’s acclaimed libretto fuses both traditional classical and operatic music with jazz and gospel echoes.

Composer Blanchard and The E-Collective teamed up with David Balakrishnan and his double GRAMMY®-winning Turtle Island Quartet. The evening will feature excerpts from the opera performed by the composer, the musical ensemble, and two guest singers Baritone Justin Austin and Soprano Adrienne Danrich. The concert will be accompanied by stirring visual excerpts of the Met performance created by Visual Artist Andrew F. Scott.
The music and Scott’s video projections will immerse the audience in Blanchard’s musical vision and provide a taste of the masterful opera that shocked and awed audiences at the Met.
The La Jolla Music Society advises that this production addresses adult themes and includes adult language so it may not be appropriate for younger audiences.

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Fire Shut Up in My Bones
Presented by La Jolla Music Society
Sunday, January 19, 2025
7:00 P.M.


