Terence Blanchard, composer of Fire Shut Up in My Bones (playing at Opera Theatre of St. Louis this summer) joins St. Louis-based musician Lamar Harris, DJ Charlie Chan, and other musical guests to share their storytelling experiences through musical composition and the written word across genres, including hip hop, jazz, opera, and soul. The conversation will be followed by live examples of these various musical languages colliding.

The panel will be followed by a workshop to kick off OTSL and Jazz St. Louis’s new high school composers lab, called THE LAB. THE LAB is designed to bring students from across the region together to develop their own musical voices and explore composition across genres.