The Department of Fine Arts and the University Artist Series sponsor a wide variety of performances that are open to the public, usually free or at a minimal charge. Those held in the downtown Performing Arts Center venues are typically ticketed, Box Office: 843-661-4444 between 12:00 and 5:00 pm. Other than University Theatre performances, events held in venues on the main campus are typically general admission with no advance reservation system.
Qiao Chen Solomon, violin
Paolo André Gualdi, piano
FMU Artist Series
D. Keith Best Black Box Theatre, Performing Arts Center/Downtown Florence
7:30 p.m. Wednesay, September 30, 2026
Hailing from China, Qiao Chen Solomon began playing violin at the age of 8 and later pursued the studies of viola, voice, piano, and conducting. She performs as soloist, conductor, chamber musician, and orchestra player throughout the United States, Asia, and Europe. She has won prizes in international competitions, including China, Ireland, and the United States. She has been invited to perform and teach masterclasses at many music festivals and universities, and has performed at Carnegie Hall with the ARCO chamber orchestra, and with the same group she has recorded Vivaldi’s violin concertos on the Art Classics label as a featured soloist.
Tickets are available to FMU students, faculty, and staff at no charge upon showing an FMU ID. Tickets to the general public are $10, as space allows. The FMU PAC Ticket Office at 201 South Dargan Street is open Monday through Friday, 12:00pm – 5:00pm, or by calling 843-661-4444.
John D’earth, jazz trumpet
FMU Artist Series
D. Keith Best Black Box Theatre, Performing Arts Center/Downtown Florence
7:30 pm Tuesday, October 6, 2026
John D’earth plays trumpet with a striking, original sound and a technique that he mobilizes for spitfire improvisation and gripping melodies. A consummate jazz artist, composer, and gifted educator, he draws inspiration from collaborators on the bandstand, from students, and from nature. Internationally known for his contributions in straight-ahead jazz (D’earth served as foil to guitarist Emily Remler, added brawn to the George Gruntz Big Band, and played on Bob Moses’ early recordings) he exhibits omnivorous musical tastes including free improvisation, mainstream rock, and modern classical music.
Tickets are available to FMU students, faculty, and staff at no charge upon showing an FMU ID. Tickets to the general public are $10, as space allows. The FMU PAC Ticket Office at 201 South Dargan Street is open Monday through Friday, 12:00pm – 5:00pm, or by calling 843-661-4444.
Water Tower
FMU Artist Series and REAL Grant Program
Adele Kassab Recital Hall, Hyman Fine Arts Center
7:30 p.m. Monday, October 19, 2026
Water Tower’s sound is a unique merging of bluegrass with old time, R&B and punk rock music. They outgrew Portland, Oregon, and now base out of Los Angeles, California. They remain on the leading edge of the genre they created for themselves over the last 20 years.
Thanks to the Artist Series and the FMU REAL Grant Program, this performance is free, general admission, no reservations.
FMU Concert Band
Dr. Terry Roberts, conductor
FMU Department of Fine Arts
Mainstage Theatre, Performing Arts Center/Downtown Florence
7:30 p.m. Tuesday, October 20, 2026
The Francis Marion University Concert Band will be performing its fall concert at the FMU Performing Arts Center in downtown Florence.
The Francis Marion University Concert Band is composed of FMU students as well as community members from the Pee Dee region. Community members include professional area music educators, band directors, choir directors, ministers of music, and FMU music faculty members. Membership is open to all FMU students and area residents who are experienced concert band instrumentalists. Performances include traditional concert band music as well as popular and show music. The program began as a way to give students of FMU a chance to perform music, earn academic credit for performance in the ensemble, and to become involved with other students in campus life.
Beginning in the spring of 2002, the FMU Concert Band rehearsals were scheduled on Tuesday evenings and adult musicians from the region were invited to participate. The band continues to rehearse every Tuesday evening.
Tickets are available to FMU students, faculty, and staff at no charge upon showing an FMU ID. Tickets to the general public are $10, as space allows. The FMU PAC Ticket Office at 201 South Dargan Street is open Monday through Friday, 12:00pm – 5:00pm, or by calling 843-661-4444.
Dead Man’s Cell Phone by Sarah Ruhl
Francis Marion University Theatre
Director: Glen Gourley
D. Keith Best Black Box Theatre, Performing Arts Center/Downtown Florence
7:30 pm Wednesday-Saturday, October 21-24, 2026
An incessantly ringing cell phone in a quiet café. A stranger at the next table who has had enough of it. A dead man with a lot of loose ends. Dead Man’s Cell Phone is an eccentric comic-noir about Jean, a woman who follows a ringing cell phone down a rabbit hole of adventure into a mysterious man’s life.
“Satire is her oxygen […] In her new oddball comedy, Dead Man’s Cell Phone, Sarah Ruhl is forever vital in her lyrical and biting takes on how we behave.” – The Washington Post
Tickets are available to FMU students, faculty, and staff at no charge upon showing an FMU ID. Tickets to the general public are $10, as space allows. The FMU PAC Ticket Office at 201 South Dargan Street is open Monday through Friday, 12:00pm – 5:00pm, or by calling 843-661-4444.
FMU String Ensemble
Dr. Terry Roberts, director
FMU Department of Fine Arts
D. Keith Best Black Box Theatre, Performing Arts Center/Downtown Florence
7:30 p.m. Wednesday, November 4, 2026
Open to all university students and faculty interested in learning and performing chamber music, the University String Ensemble members meet for weekly rehearsals during Fall and Spring academic semesters, giving public recitals and accompanying other campus ensembles.
Tickets are available to FMU students, faculty, and staff at no charge upon showing an FMU ID. Tickets to the general public are $10, as space allows. The FMU PAC Ticket Office at 201 South Dargan Street is open Monday through Friday, 12:00pm – 5:00pm, or by calling 843-661-4444.
FMU Music Industry Ensemble
Dr. Brandon Goff, director
FMU Department of Fine Arts
Chapman Auditorium, McNair Science Building
7:30 p.m. Thursday, November 5, 2026
The Music Industry Ensemble is a chamber ensemble devoted to the development of individual performance and improvisation skills through the staging of music for small groups representing a variety of classic and modern jazz, pop, rock and soul styles. The M.I.E. provides a workshop in which students also learn arranging, microphone technique and scheduling, sound reinforcement and lighting design.
Please contact Dr. Brandon Goff bgoff@fmarion.edu for additional information about participating in the M.I. Ensemble.
Thanks to the Music Industry program, there is no charge for this performance. General admission, no advance reservations needed.
FMU Jazz Combo
Dr. Paolo André Gualdi, director
FMU Department of Fine Arts
D. Keith Best Black Box Theatre, Performing Arts Center/Downtown Florence
7:30 pm Tuesday, November 10, 2026
The FMU Jazz Combo allows students in a small group setting to learn and hone improvisational skills within the the jazz idiom. Works have been selected from music by Corea, Glasper, Shorter, and more.
Tickets are available to FMU students, faculty, and staff at no charge upon showing an FMU ID. Tickets to the general public are $10, as space allows. The FMU PAC Ticket Office at 201 South Dargan Street is open Monday through Friday, 12:00pm – 5:00pm, or by calling 843-661-4444.
FMU Percussion Ensemble
Dr. Brian Jones, director
FMU Department of Fine Arts
D. Keith Best Black Box Theatre, Performing Arts Center/Downtown Florence
7:30 pm Wednesday, November 11, 2026
The Francis Marion University Percussion Ensemble is a contemporary chamber ensemble that explores the world of percussion from an improvisation-based approach. We model our performance methodology and musical ideology on the performance practice of drummer/composer Max Roach’s percussion ensemble M’Boom, especially in their focus on jazz and non-Western musical cultures as a touchstone for aesthetic inspiration. We employ improvisation as a key mode of praxis—both in terms of theory and practice—and special focus is given to compositions invented during collective improvisation exercises. Additionally, we explore “minimalism,” “game,” and “open score” notation/compositional systems, while also examining the ways in which poetry and literature can be interpreted in a musical setting.
Tickets are available to FMU students, faculty, and staff at no charge upon showing an FMU ID. Tickets to the general public are $10, as space allows. The FMU PAC Ticket Office at 201 South Dargan Street is open Monday through Friday, 12:00pm – 5:00pm, or by calling 843-661-4444.
FMU Concert Choir and Voice Collective
Dr. Fran Coleman
FMU Department of Fine Arts
Performing Arts Center/Downtown Florence
7:30 p.m. Monday, November 23, 2026
Open to all university students, the University Concert Choir has an average enrollment of between 35 and 45 students. This group has sung in numerous area churches and has also performed with the Florence Symphony Orchestra. They have performed such major choral works as the “Polovetzian Dance and Chorus” of Alexander Borodin, the “Schicksalslied” of Johannes Brahms, and the Ninth Symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven. Recently their concerts have included selections accompanied by the newly formed Francis Marion string ensemble.
Francis Marion’s Voice Collective is a small, audition-only vocal group. This group performs throughout the region for schools and service organizations. They have also performed in Orlando, Florida, in Baltimore, Maryland, in Washington, D.C., in Vienna, Austria, and on a performance cruise to the Bahamas.
Tickets are available to FMU students, faculty, and staff at no charge upon showing an FMU ID. Tickets to the general public are $10, as space allows. The FMU PAC Ticket Office at 201 South Dargan Street is open Monday through Friday, 12:00pm – 5:00pm, or by calling 843-661-4444.
Studio Voice Recital – Students of Dr. Fran Coleman
FMU Department of Fine Arts
Adele Kassab Recital Hall, Hyman Fine Arts Center
7:30 pm Monday, December 7, 2026
Come celebrate the accomplishments of voice students in Dr. Coleman’s studio as they perform classical as well as contemporary songs.
RESERVATIONS: This performance is free and open to the public. No reservations, general admission.
Whistling Hens
Jennifer Piazza-Pick, soprano and Natalie Groom, clarinet
FMU Artist Series
D. Keith Best Black Box Theatre, Performing Arts Center/Downtown Florence
7:30 pm Wednesday, February 10, 2027
Whistling Hens® was founded by soprano Jennifer Piazza-Pick and clarinetist Natalie Groom to perform and commission music by women composers to create a financially and artistically equitable future for women in music. The duo’s name was plucked from a quote by a male music critic who wrote in the New York Times in 1918, “women composers are at best whistling hens.”
Tickets are available to FMU students, faculty, and staff at no charge upon showing an FMU ID. Tickets to the general public are $10, as space allows. The FMU PAC Ticket Office at 201 South Dargan Street is open Monday through Friday, 12:00pm – 5:00pm, or by calling 843-661-4444.
S.C. Chamber Music Festival
South Carolina Chamber Music Festival
Paolo André Gualdi, artistic director
FMU Department of Fine Arts, Artist Series and REAL Grant Program
D. Keith Best Black Box Theatre, Performing Arts Center/Downtown Florence
7:30 p.m. Monday-Friday, February 22-26, 2027
Tickets are available to FMU students, faculty, and staff at no charge upon showing an FMU ID. Tickets to the general public are $10, as space allows. The FMU PAC Ticket Office at 201 South Dargan Street is open Monday through Friday, 12:00pm – 5:00pm, or by calling 843-661-4444.
Monday, February 22 – 7:30 pm: D. Keith Best Black Box Theatre
Tuesday, February 23 – 7:30 pm: D. Keith Best Black Box Theatre
Wednesday, February 24 – 7:30 pm: D. Keith Best Black Box Theatre
Friday, February 26 – 7:30 pm: D. Keith Best Black Box Theatre
FMU String Ensemble
Dr. Terry Roberts, director
FMU Department of Fine Arts
D. Keith Best Black Box Theatre, Performing Arts Center/Downtown Florence
7:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 3, 2027
Open to all university students and faculty interested in learning and performing chamber music, the University String Ensemble members meet for weekly rehearsals during Fall and Spring academic semesters, giving public recitals and accompanying other campus ensembles.
Tickets are available to FMU students, faculty, and staff at no charge upon showing an FMU ID. Tickets to the general public are $10, as space allows. The FMU PAC Ticket Office at 201 South Dargan Street is open Monday through Friday, 12:00pm – 5:00pm, or by calling 843-661-4444.
Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Show
Francis Marion University Theatre
Director: Glen Gourley
Fine Arts Theatre, Hyman Fine Arts Center
7:30 pm Wednesday-Saturday, March 3-6, 2027
As an out-of-work actor in London in the early 1970s, Richard O’Brien wrote The Rocky Horror Show to keep himself busy on winter evenings. Since his youth, he had developed a passion for science fiction and B horror movies; he wanted to combine elements of the unintentional humor of B horror movies, portentous dialogue of schlock-horror, Steve Reeves muscle films, and fifties rock and roll into The Rocky Horror Show. A major theme running throughout the musical is transvestism, which according to O’Brien was not originally meant to be as prominent as it ended up being. He conceived and wrote the play set against the backdrop of the glam era that had manifested itself throughout British popular culture in the early 1970s; he has stated “glam rock allowed me to be myself more,” allowing his concept to come into being.
Thanks to the Department of Fine Arts, this is a free performance, general admission, no reservations.
FMU Concert Band
Dr. Terry Roberts, conductor
FMU Department of Fine Arts
Mainstage Theatre, Performing Arts Center/Downtown Florence
7:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 9, 2027
The Francis Marion University Concert Band will be performing its fall concert at the FMU Performing Arts Center in downtown Florence.
The Francis Marion University Concert Band is composed of FMU students as well as community members from the Pee Dee region. Community members include professional area music educators, band directors, choir directors, ministers of music, and FMU music faculty members. Membership is open to all FMU students and area residents who are experienced concert band instrumentalists. Performances include traditional concert band music as well as popular and show music. The program began as a way to give students of FMU a chance to perform music, earn academic credit for performance in the ensemble, and to become involved with other students in campus life.
Tickets are available to FMU students, faculty, and staff at no charge upon showing an FMU ID. Tickets to the general public are $10, as space allows. The FMU PAC Ticket Office at 201 South Dargan Street is open Monday through Friday, 12:00pm – 5:00pm, or by calling 843-661-4444.
Jon Conley, guitar
FMU Artist Series
D. Keith Best Black Box Theatre, Performing Arts Center/Downtown Florence
7:30 p.m. Wednesay, March 10, 2027
Jon Conley is a mainstay of the Nashville music industry. Jon began playing guitar at seven (wanting to play like Roy Clark) and has branched out to include mandolin, fiddle, banjo, vocals and songwriting in his portfolio. Perhaps best known as the lead guitarist for the Kenny Chesney band, he has credits on recordings by a number of artists and attributes his success to practicing and taking every opportunity to perform seriously.
Tickets are available to FMU students, faculty, and staff at no charge upon showing an FMU ID. Tickets to the general public are $10, as space allows. The FMU PAC Ticket Office at 201 South Dargan Street is open Monday through Friday, 12:00pm – 5:00pm, or by calling 843-661-4444.
FMU Music Industry Ensemble
Dr. Brandon Goff, director
FMU Department of Fine Arts
Performing Arts Center/Downtown Florence
7:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 7, 2027
The Music Industry Ensemble is a chamber ensemble devoted to the development of individual performance and improvisation skills through the staging of music for small groups representing a variety of classic and modern jazz, pop, rock and soul styles. The M.I.E. provides a workshop in which students also learn arranging, microphone technique and scheduling, sound reinforcement and lighting design.
Please contact Dr. Brandon Goff bgoff@fmarion.edu for additional information about participating in the M.I. Ensemble.
Tickets are available to FMU students, faculty, and staff at no charge upon showing an FMU ID. Tickets to the general public are $10, as space allows. The FMU PAC Ticket Office at 201 South Dargan Street is open Monday through Friday, 12:00pm – 5:00pm, or by calling 843-661-4444.
FMU Jazz Combo
Dr. Paolo André Gualdi, director
FMU Department of Fine Arts
D. Keith Best Black Box Theatre, Performing Arts Center/Downtown Florence
7:30 pm Tuesday, April 13 2027
The FMU Jazz Combo allows students in a small group setting to learn and hone improvisational skills within the the jazz idiom. Works have been selected from music by Corea, Glasper, Shorter, and more.
Tickets are available to FMU students, faculty, and staff at no charge upon showing an FMU ID. Tickets to the general public are $10, as space allows. The FMU PAC Ticket Office at 201 South Dargan Street is open Monday through Friday, 12:00pm – 5:00pm, or by calling 843-661-4444.
FMU Percussion Ensemble
Dr. Brian Jones, director
FMU Department of Fine Arts
D. Keith Best Black Box Theatre, Performing Arts Center/Downtown Florence
7:30 pm Wednesday, April 14, 2027
The Francis Marion University Percussion Ensemble is a contemporary chamber ensemble that explores the world of percussion from an improvisation-based approach. We model our performance methodology and musical ideology on the performance practice of drummer/composer Max Roach’s percussion ensemble M’Boom, especially in their focus on jazz and non-Western musical cultures as a touchstone for aesthetic inspiration. We employ improvisation as a key mode of praxis—both in terms of theory and practice—and special focus is given to compositions invented during collective improvisation exercises. Additionally, we explore “minimalism,” “game,” and “open score” notation/compositional systems, while also examining the ways in which poetry and literature can be interpreted in a musical setting.
Tickets are available to FMU students, faculty, and staff at no charge upon showing an FMU ID. Tickets to the general public are $10, as space allows. The FMU PAC Ticket Office at 201 South Dargan Street is open Monday through Friday, 12:00pm – 5:00pm, or by calling 843-661-4444.
Student Directed One-Act Plays
Francis Marion University Theatre
Fine Arts Theatre, Hyman Fine Arts Center, Main Campus
7:30 pm Friday-Saturday, April 16-17, 2027
RESERVATIONS: This performance is free and open to the public. No reservations, general admission.
Senior Repertoire Projects
FMU Department of Fine Arts
Adele Kassab Recital Hall, Hyman Fine Arts Center
7:30 pm, April, 2027
RESERVATIONS: This performance is free and open to the public. No reservations, general admission.
FMU Concert Choir and Voice Collective
Dr. Fran Coleman
FMU Department of Fine Arts
Performing Arts Center/Downtown Florence
7:30 p.m. Monday, April 19, 2027
Open to all university students, the University Concert Choir has an average enrollment of between 35 and 45 students. This group has sung in numerous area churches and has also performed with the Florence Symphony Orchestra. They have performed such major choral works as the “Polovetzian Dance and Chorus” of Alexander Borodin, the “Schicksalslied” of Johannes Brahms, and the Ninth Symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven. Recently their concerts have included selections accompanied by the newly formed Francis Marion string ensemble.
Francis Marion’s Voice Collective is a small, audition-only vocal group. This group performs throughout the region for schools and service organizations. They have also performed in Orlando, Florida, in Baltimore, Maryland, in Washington, D.C., in Vienna, Austria, and on a performance cruise to the Bahamas.
Tickets are available to FMU students, faculty, and staff at no charge upon showing an FMU ID. Tickets to the general public are $10, as space allows. The FMU PAC Ticket Office at 201 South Dargan Street is open Monday through Friday, 12:00pm – 5:00pm, or by calling 843-661-4444.
Studio Voice Recital – Students of Dr. Fran Coleman
FMU Department of Fine Arts
Adele Kassab Recital Hall, Hyman Fine Arts Center
7:30 pm Monday, April 26, 2027
Come celebrate the accomplishments of voice students in Dr. Coleman’s studio as they perform classical as well as contemporary songs.
RESERVATIONS: This performance is free and open to the public. No reservations, general admission.