Harold Blanchard (musician)

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Harold Alfred Blanchard (born 1930 in New York , † December 19, 2010 in Edgewater , Florida ) was an American pianist , arranger , composer and university professor who worked in the fields of jazz and classical music.

Life

Blanchard grew up in New York as the son of a musician couple; his father was a musician in the big bands of Cab Calloway and Erskine Hawkins . After taking piano lessons from his father, he made his debut with Chopin pieces at the age of six ; from the age of seven he had lessons with Edwin Coates and then studied at the Juilliard School of Music and with Jacques Abram . At the age of 14 he first appeared as a classical soloist. In 1977 he moved to Florida after having worked for several years in the Bahamas and Central America (including Guatemala ) as a musician and music teacher.

He composed a number of classical music works, such as Guatemala Connection , which was recorded by Columbia Records . At the suggestion of Hubert Laws , he wrote his composition New Earth Sonata (1983), on the recording of which he collaborated with Chick Corea and Quincy Jones ; the resulting album New Earth was in the Billboard Top 10 for 16 months. From 1983 he taught as a lecturer ( adjunct professor ) at Stetson University in DeLand , Florida, held courses on improvisation and continued to work as a composer. His Concertino for Flute and Orchestra was premiered by the Stetson University Orchestra; In 1989 his Piano Concerto followed in E Flat . He wrote the composition Explorations for Violin Duo and Piano for Routa Kroumovitch and Alvaro Gomez .

In later years Blanchard performed as a soloist and leader of the jazz formation The Harold Blanchard Trio and Suzy Park in Central Florida and performed regularly at the Hampton Jazz Festival in Virginia until 2003 and at the jazz festival in his home town of New Smyrna Beach until 2008 , where he up to lived his death in late 2010.

On September 26, 2008, New Smyrna Beach honored him with a Harold Blanchard Day.

Other compositions

  • Slightly Blue (1991)
  • String Quartet No. 1 (1993)
  • Innocent Meanderings (1993)

Discographic notes

  • Dining with Harold Blanchard at the Keyboard

Web links

Notes and individual references

  1. ^ Obituary in News-Journal Online 2010 ( Memento from January 1, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ^ Reference to Dieter Lehnhoff on: The Living Composers Project
  3. ↑ Laws also recorded Blanchard's composition Restoration on his 1974 album In the Beginning (CTI) .
  4. ↑ Harold Blanchard at Discogs (English)
  5. ↑ with Jean Marc Poitris on double bass and Tony Manna on drums.
  6. ^ Obituary The Observer
  7. ↑ Notes on this composition at American Record ( Memento from July 29, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
personal data
SURNAME Blanchard, Harold
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Blanchard, Harold Alfred (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American jazz musician, composer and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH new York
DATE OF DEATH December 19, 2010
Place of death Edgewater , Florida