Frederick Blanchard

Frederick Blanchard is an emerging conductor and educator based in Florida, active across orchestral, choral, and percussion settings. He currently serves as Director of Orchestras at University High School and Galaxy Middle School, Assistant Director of Percussion at Ocoee High School, and Music Director for Hope Lutheran Church in The Villages. 

Blanchard was recently accepted into the Varna International Music Academy as a student conductor, where he will begin advanced training in opera, musical theatre, and orchestral repertoire under faculty affiliated with major U.S. and international institutions.

An advocate for music education, Blanchard also serves as an adjudicator for the Florida Orchestra Association Solo & Ensemble Festival, supporting young performers across the state. His teaching and performing work reflect a broad foundation in conducting, percussion, and vocal studies.

He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Music from Rollins College, where he studied conducting with Dr. John Sinclair, percussion with Jeremy Katalenic, composition and theory with Dr. Daniel Crozier, and voice with Stephen Mumbert.

“I was born with Tetralogy of Fallot — basically 3 to 4 different heart defects at the same time. The moment I came out of the womb, I was rushed into surgery. Three months later, another round. From what I’ve been told, I’ve had about 8 or 9 surgeries in my life.

The last big open-heart surgery was in 5th grade. My final surgery was around 18 or 19 years old.

Growing up wasn’t easy. My parents didn’t have the best relationship, and because I was a sick child, everything was more complicated. When I was in 3rd grade, there was a major incident involving my mom and my dad’s home… and after that, I didn’t see my father again until around 8th grade.

My mom was also disabled, so holding down a job was hard for her. Eventually she went on disability, and I was placed on disability too for insurance. We struggled for years — including multiple periods of homelessness. Survival was the theme of my childhood.

But around 5th grade, something unexpected happened: I learned how to conduct a simple 4/4 pattern in music class… and it stuck.

My mom loved Pavarotti. She played opera constantly. If it wasn’t Haitian Christian music, it was opera, or Enrico Macias — who sings French and Arabic love songs. Music filled our home even when everything else felt unstable.

She wanted me to learn violin. I resisted. She pushed me toward piano. I resisted. Now I regret that. But her intention was always the same: she wanted me to be intelligent, cultured, exposed to beauty.

She came from a period of her life in Haiti where things were very “high society”—maids, elegance, that whole world. Even when life got harder, she held onto that part of her identity. Some of that rubbed off on me, until I realized there was more to life than status.

But music… music stayed with me. It became the one constant, the thing I carried through all the chaos."

Frederick Blanchard