Trumpeter Terence Blanchard takes his composing talents to Broadway

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In a move that could have been considered an inevitability given his mile-long list of film score credits (most notably for just about every Spike Lee project since 1991), trumpeter Terence Blanchard has been tapped to compose original music for the latest play from writer Stephen Adly Guirgis.

Called ‘The Mother... with the Hat,’ (expletive redacted) Guirgis’ latest is described as a ‘verbal cage match about love, fidelity and misplaced haberdashery’ with a cast that includes ‘The Sopranos’’ Bobby Cannavale, Annabella Sciorra and comic Chris Rock.

Guirgis is co-artistic director of New York’s LAByrinth Theater Company and has written ‘Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train,’ the drama circle-winning ‘In Arabia, We’d All Be Kings’ and episodes of TV’s ‘The Sopranos’ and ‘NYPD Blue.’ The play opens at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater in New York City on April 11 with previews beginning on March 15.

Established as Hollywood’s go-to source for scores steeped in jazz and blues, the New Orleans-based Blanchard also recently saw the world premiere of a piece commissioned by the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra last month and is currently working on an opera about boxer Emile Griffith, scheduled to open in 2012.

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