FMU’s South Carolina Chamber Music Festival returns for eighth season 

Francis Marion University’s South Carolina Chamber Music Festival returns to campus and the FMU Performing Arts Center this February. 

The eighth iteration of the festival will provide five nights of unforgettable jazz and classical music, beginning on Feb. 23. 

The festival, curated by Francis Marion University professor of music and piano virtuoso Dr. Paolo Gualdi, will hold four performances at FMU’s Performing Arts Center in downtown Florence, and one on the University’s main campus at the Kassab Recital Hall within the Hyman Fine Arts Building. 

All festival events are in small venues and procurement of tickets through the FMU Performing Arts Center box office in advance of all performances is recommended. The box office can be reached by calling 843.661.4444 or by visiting the ticket office in person at 201 S. Dargan Street in downtown Florence. Ticket prices vary by performance for the general public, though students from FMU and are admitted free to all events with a valid student I.D., but are required to have a ticket as well. 

The first performance, Where Jazz Meets Classical, will be held on Sunday, Feb. 23 at 5 p.m. at the Kassab Recital Hall and will feature Gualdi as pianist, bassist Natalie Boeyink, drummer Jon Hill, and violinist Danijela Žeželj-Gualdi. The concert is free and open to the public. 

On Tuesday, the Terranova Trio of violinist Christian Zamora, cellist Yun Hao Jiang, and pianist Irina Pevzner at the FMU PAC’s Black Box Theater at 7:30 p.m. Tickets for the performance are $5. 

The Stephen Anderson Jazz Trio will headline the Black Box Theater beginning at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 26. Tickets for the performance are $5. 

Concert goers will be witness to a special occasion on Friday, Feb. 28 as the Balkan Quartet premieres a new work by FMU associate professor of Music Technology, Dr. Brandon Goff, in a live recording session. This event is free and open to the public.

The festival concludes on Leap Day, Saturday, Feb. 29 with an exhilarating jaunt through eastern Europe with the Balkan Quartet at 7:30 p.m.

For more information about the South Carolina Chamber Music Festival, visit www.facebook.com/SCCMF or call the FMU Performing Arts Center at 843.661.4444.