Admission Cost: $5 USC students; $25 general admission

Hailed by The New York Times as “prodigiously accomplished and exciting,” Blair McMillen takes the stage with a dynamic program featuring the music of Claude Debussy, Brian Wilson, Margaret Bonds, William Bolcom and more.

About the Artist

Hailed by The New York Times as “prodigiously accomplished and exciting” and as one of the piano’s “brilliant stars,” pianist Blair McMillen has forged a musical life that is unbounded by convention. He is well-known for his advocacy of living composers and contemporary music, as well as for championing very early keyboard music and more recent neglected masterpieces. For more than two decades, McMillen has divided his time as piano soloist, chamber musician, music festival director, and educator/teacher.

Blair McMillen is the co-founder and co-director of the Rite of Summer Music Festival. Rite of Summer is a free, outdoor contemporary-music series held on New York City’s Governors Island. The festival has presented boundary-pushing artists such as the JACK Quartet, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Tigue, Theo Bleckmann, Todd Reynolds, Contemporaneous, and Don Byron’s New Gospel Quintet. Celebrating its twelfth season in 2023, Rite of Summer is the only annual music festival on Governors Island, a place the New Yorker has called “an enormous playground for the arts.”

Blair McMillen holds degrees from Oberlin College, Manhattan School of Music, and The Juilliard School.

Blair McMillen has performed in major concert venues in New York, throughout the United States, and around the world. 

Tickets go on sale May 1!

Purchase tickets in person at the Koger Center Box Office or online. New this year: save $ by purchasing an event package of all SEPF signature concerts!

Admission Cost: $5 students; $25 general admission

2026 Spoleto Festival USA Chamber Music attendees will have a second opportunity to hear pianist Soyeon Kate Lee, praised by The New York Times for her “huge, richly varied sound, lively imagination and firm sense of style.” 

About the Artist

First prize winner of the Naumburg International Piano Competition and the Concert Artist Guild International Competition, Korean-American pianist Soyeon Kate Lee has been lauded by The New York Times as a pianist with “a huge, richly varied sound, a lively imagination and a firm sense of style,” and by The Washington Post for her “stunning command of the keyboard.”

Highlights of recent seasons include appearances at the National Gallery, Library of Congress, Gina Bachauer Concerts, Purdue Convocations, Music@Menlo, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center on tour, San Francisco Performances, Camerata Pacifica tour, Chamber Music Chicago and the Cleveland Art Museum. She was a member of Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society’s Bowers program, and is a regular participant in numerous chamber music festivals including the Great Lakes, Santa Fe and Music Mountain Chamber Music Festivals. Ms. Lee has collaborated with conductors Carlos Miguel Prieto, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Jahja Ling, and Jorge Mester with the London, San Diego, Hawaii, Louisiana, Naples symphony orchestras among others.

She has commissioned works by prominent composers and has given world premieres of works written by Frederic Rzewski, Paola Prestini, Marc-André Hamelin, Alexander Goehr, Gabriela Lena Frank, Texu Kim and Huang Ruo.

As a Naxos recording artist, her discography spans a wide range of repertoire from two volumes of Scarlatti Sonatas, Liszt Opera Transcriptions, two volumes of Scriabin, and Clementi Sonatas. Ms. Lee’s recording of Re!nvented under the E1/Entertainment One (formerly Koch Classics) label garnered her a feature review in Gramophone Magazine and the Classical Recording Foundation’s Young Artist of the Year Award.

Tickets go on sale May 1!

Purchase tickets in person at the Koger Center Box Office or online. New this year: save $ by purchasing an event package of all SEPF signature concerts!

Admission Cost: $5 USC Students; $25 General Admission

Festival participants compete for a chance to perform with the South Carolina Philharmonic in a Masterworks concert and more than $10,000 in cash prizes.

Tickets go on sale May 1!

Purchase tickets in person at the Koger Center Box Office or online. New this year: save $ by purchasing an event package of all SEPF signature concerts!

Admission Cost: FREE

This free public lecture, entitled "Sounds of the Mardi Gras Belt," is part of the Society for American Music's "Sounding the Nation at 250" initiative. See details here:

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: Free, but registration is required.

Middle and high school girls are invited to spend a day of learning, playing and performing at Jazz Girls Day®! Founded by Dr. Colleen Clark, this free event welcomes girls who are just starting jazz or continuing their musical journey. Participants will enjoy master classes, jam sessions and the chance to build meaningful connections with peers. Registration is required.

Music educators are also invited to learn how to encourage girls to play jazz by registering for our Jazz Girls Day® Jazz Education Session.

Click here to register.

Admission Cost: FREE

Cormac Cannon, conductor
Ryan Gonzales, guest conductor
Serena Hill-Laroche, soprano

As part of the United States Semi quincentennial, the USC Wind Ensemble opens its season with a celebration of American stories. From Puerto Rican composer Roberto Sierra’s rousing Alegria, to Copland’s enduring classic Emblems, each work on this program highlights a unique American perspective. USC School of Music faculty member Serena Hill-Laroche is featured on Elena Specht’s evocative work Into Her Care, which tells the stories of American women. The concert closes with Benjamin Horne’s powerful Spiritual Symphony, based on numerous well-known African American spirituals.

Sierra/Scatterday, Alegria
Specht, Into Her Care
Copland, Emblems
Horne, Spiritual Symphony

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: General public - $30 Seniors/military / USC faculty and staff - $25 Children under 18 and non-USC students with ID - $8 USC Students - free with student ID

Celebrate the remarkable tenure of Scott Weiss during his 10th and final season as Music Director and Conductor of the USC Symphony Orchestra as he concludes his distinguished career with the University of South Carolina.

To open the season, the USC Symphony Orchestra will be joined by Spanish-Dutch pianist Albert Cano Smit in Ravel’s Concerto for the Left Hand. The program also features Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique.

Tickets are available in-person at Koger Center Box Office (803-251-2222, Monday–Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.) or online at KogerCenterForTheArts.com.

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Violinist Fung Chern Hwei defies easy categorization. Equally at home in the precision of classical repertoire and the spontaneity of contemporary and folk traditions, he brings a rare fluidity to every performance. His playing moves seamlessly across styles—at once virtuosic and deeply expressive—revealing unexpected connections between musical worlds. Whether interpreting a canonical work or reimagining it through improvisation, Fung’s artistry transcends boundaries, inviting listeners into a space where genres dissolve and music speaks in its most direct, human form. Come hear this versatile musician in the intimacy of the School of Music recital hall. 

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Shandon Presbyterian Church
607 Woodrow Street
Columbia, SC

Admission Cost: FREE

We Were Fridays, featuring Jeff Zeigler (cello) and Reggie Gray (dance) follows a story that began in the Griot tradition of West Africa, travel to South Carolina by way of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, then north by way of the Great Migration, and beyond. It explores the music of the Gullah people of the Low Country of South Carolina, a community which to this day has preserved more of their West African linguistic and cultural heritage than any other African American community in the United States. Gullah music has influenced spirituals, gospel, ragtime, rhythm and blues, soul, hip hop and jazz. We Were Fridays  extends this reach into the world of instrumental cello music. Told through cello, electronics, and dance, this work explores forbidden love, fractured lines and complex legacies follows a story that began in the Griot tradition of West Africa, travel to South Carolina by way of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, then north by way of the Great Migration, and beyond. It explores the music of the Gullah people of the Low Country of South Carolina, a community which to this day has preserved more of their West African linguistic and cultural heritage than any other African American community in the United States. Gullah music has influenced spirituals, gospel, ragtime, rhythm and blues, soul, hip hop and jazz. We Were Fridays  extends this reach into the world of instrumental cello music. Told through cello, electronics, and dance, this work explores forbidden love, fractured lines and complex legacies.

The work is centered around new compositions from Etienne Charles, Tamar-kali, Hannah Ishizaki and Jeffrey Zeigler; and features choreography/dance from Flexn pioneer Reggie “Regg Roc” Gray, and a bespoke interactive book design from sister sylvester. The project is deeply rooted in an ethos of community and intergenerational learning – partnering with the Penn Center on St. Helena Island, South Carolina and the University of Georgia Culture & Community program to devise community engagement and education platforms. This work brings together community members and elders from local Gullah communities, along with students and teachers from HBCUs across the country - to engage in dialogue, conversation and creative exchange around the project’s themes of memory and diaspora. The album and touring performance work will premiere in 2026 and tour across the US and internationally.

We Were Fridays will premiere at National Sawdust in September before the Southern Exposure New Music performance.

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All Southern Exposure concerts are FREE, but patrons may reserve seats and support the Southeast’s most adventurous music series! A gift of $150 secures a seat for the entire 2026-27 season. To donate online, click here or contact Brad Martin at brad.martin@sc.edu, 803-777-0704.

Admission Cost: FREE

Jay Jacobs, conductor

Sousa, Easter Monday on the White House Lawn

Bergman, Dream Machine

Svanoe, The Author’s Suite
Brenna Curtis, conductor

Schwantner, Recoil

Gershwin/Brubaker, An American in Paris

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Echoes of Identity brings together a rich and varied tapestry of violin music by Jewish composers, highlighting both heritage and individuality of expression. Ernest Bloch’s Baal Shem stands as a cornerstone of the repertoire, evoking the spiritual depth and intensity of Jewish tradition, while Meira Warshauer’s Yiddish Fantasy offers a vibrant and personal reflection on cultural memory from a contemporary voice rooted here in Columbia, South Carolina. The program is further enriched by works of Israeli composers Paul Ben-Haim and Shulamit Ran, whose music expands the narrative in strikingly different ways, blending lyricism, modernism, and rhythmic vitality. Together, these works reveal the diversity and expressive breadth of Jewish composers across time and place.

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Cormac Cannon, conductor
Ryan Gonzales, guest conductor

Three colors weave their way through a diverse program of classic and brand-new music for wind ensemble. The USC Wind Ensemble performs the world premiere of the wind ensemble version of Noir by USC School of Music faculty composer Fang Man. Black and white emerge through the piano keys of Charles Ives’ classic The Alcotts, the imagery of historical newsreels in William Schuman’s first work for band, and two marches by John Philip Sousa. The finale, contemporary American composer Michael Daugherty’s Red Cape Tango, is a musical depiction of a “dance of death,” following Superman’s fight to the death with the villain Doomsday.

Fang Man, Noir  - World Premiere of Wind Ensemble Version
Ives/Elkus, The Alcotts
Sousa, The Black Horse Troop
Sousa, The White Rose
Schuman, Newsreel in Five Shots
Daugherty/Spede, Red Cape Tango

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: General public - $30 Seniors/military / USC faculty and staff - $25 Children under 18 and non-USC students with ID - $8 USC Students - free with student ID

Celebrate the remarkable tenure of Scott Weiss during his 10th and final season as Music Director and Conductor of the USC Symphony Orchestra as he concludes his distinguished career with the University of South Carolina.

The October concert features Allen Guelzo, one of the nation’s foremost scholars of Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War era, serving as narrator for Copland’s Lincoln Portrait. The program also showcases USC Professor of Saxophone Cliff Leaman as soloist in Eric Ewazen’s Concerto for Tenor Saxophone and Orchestra.

Ives - The Unanswered Question
William Grant Still - Festive Overture
Gould - Amber Waves from “American Ballads”
Eric Ewazen - Concerto for Tenor Saxophone and Orchestra
Copland - Lincoln Portrait

Tickets are available in-person at Koger Center Box Office (803-251-2222, Monday–Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.) or online at KogerCenterForTheArts.com.

Admission Cost: FREE

Location: Koger

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: TBD

Admission Cost: TBD

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

LOCATION: Koger Center for the Arts Large Rehearsal Room

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Location:

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: Adults: $25; Seniors, USC Faculty & Staff, Military: $20; Students with ID: $10

 

Purchase tickets online or at the door. Please note that online sales end at 3:00 p.m. on opening day. Tickets are available at the door one hour before the show. No refunds. Adults: $25; Seniors, USC Faculty & Staff, Military: $20; Students with ID: $10

Drayton Hall Theatre

Admission Cost: Adults: $25; Seniors, USC Faculty & Staff, Military: $20; Students with ID: $10

 

Purchase tickets online or at the door. Please note that online sales end at 3:00 p.m. on opening day. Tickets are available at the door one hour before the show. No refunds. Adults: $25; Seniors, USC Faculty & Staff, Military: $20; Students with ID: $10

Drayton Hall Theatre

Admission Cost: Adults: $25; Seniors, USC Faculty & Staff, Military: $20; Students with ID: $10

 

Purchase tickets online or at the door. Please note that online sales end at 3:00 p.m. on opening day. Tickets are available at the door one hour before the show. No refunds. Adults: $25; Seniors, USC Faculty & Staff, Military: $20; Students with ID: $10

Drayton Hall Theatre

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Jay Jacobs, conductor

Sousa, Easter Monday on the White House Lawn

Bergman, Dream Machine

Svanoe, The Author’s Suite
Brenna Curtis, conductor

Schwantner, Recoil

Gershwin/Brubaker, An American in Paris

Admission Cost: FREE

Student chamber music ensembles of diverse instrumentation (typically including string quartets, piano trios, wind quintets and mixed instrument groups) perform chamber music from Baroque to contemporary.

Admission Cost: FREE

Carolina Alive, USC’s vocal jazz ensemble, will present their final performance of the year.  Join us for an evening of fabulous singing! The concert is free and open to the public.

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

The Palmetto Saxophone Quartet will present a compelling program showcasing the remarkable breadth and vitality of contemporary music for saxophone quartet. Reflecting the ensemble’s commitment to championing new repertoire and innovative artistic voices, the concert features works by eight living composers, including the world premiere of a new composition by David Garner. Audiences will experience a rich variety of compositional styles, from introspective lyricism and expressive textures to exhilarating rhythmic energy and virtuosic interplay. Through this diverse program, the Palmetto Saxophone Quartet highlights the saxophone quartet’s extraordinary versatility and expressive potential as a dynamic medium for contemporary artistic expression.

* * *

All Southern Exposure concerts are FREE, but patrons may reserve seats and support the Southeast’s most adventurous music series! A gift of $150 secures a seat for the entire 2026-27 season. To donate online, click here or contact Brad Martin at brad.martin@sc.edu, 803-777-0704.

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: $15 adults; $10 seniors, USC faculty and staff; $5 students. Free for USC School of Music students, faculty and staff.

The USC School of Music’s renowned music faculty performs fresh and vibrant chamber music programs that pair canonic masterpieces alongside brand new works.

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: TBD

Location: TBD

Admission Cost: FREE

Sousa, Easter Monday on the White House Lawn

Bergman, Dream Machine

Svanoe, The Author’s Suite
Brenna Curtis, conductor

Schwantner, Recoil

Gershwin/Brubaker, An American in Paris

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: Free

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Cormac Cannon, conductor
Ryan Gonzales, guest conductor
Philip Bush, piano

The USC Wind Ensemble takes flight! Emerging composer Noah Hudson-Camack’s exhilarating fanfare is contrasted with the haunting rising intervals of David Biedenbender’s Enigma. Adam Schoenberg’s Rise is a haunting an evocative journey, while Frank Ticheli’s new work Over the Moon is a joyous and imaginative trip into space. Faculty pianist Philip Bush takes center stage in Olivier Messiaen’s groundbreaking Oiseaux exotiques, based on bird calls from around the world.

Hudson-Camack, Fanfare and Flight
Biedenbender, Enigma
Schoenberg, Rise
Messiaen, Oiseaux exotiques
Ticheli, Over the Moon 

Admission Cost: EE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

 

 

Admission Cost: FREE

Students from the Carolina LifeSong Initiative perform and improvise in their end-of-semester recital. Free admission, family and sensory friendly.

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: General public - $30 Seniors/military / USC faculty and staff - $25 Children under 18 and non-USC students with ID - $8 USC Students - free with student ID

The USC Symphony Orchestra presents a powerful evening of symphonic masterworks featuring mezzo-soprano Rachel Calloway in Leonard Bernstein’s Symphony No. 1, “Jeremiah.” Blending orchestral brilliance with a deeply moving vocal finale, Bernstein’s first symphony reflects themes of prophecy, loss, and hope.
The program opens with Dora Pejacevic’s Symphony in F-sharp Minor, a richly expressive work by the pioneering Croatian composer whose music is gaining renewed international recognition. Together, these compelling works offer an evening of passion, drama, and profound emotional depth.
Program

Dora Pejacevic – Symphony in F-sharp Minor
Bernstein – Symphony No. 1, “Jeremiah”

Tickets are available in-person at Koger Center Box Office (803-251-2222, Monday–Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.) or online at KogerCenterForTheArts.com.

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Admission Cost: FREE

Location: TBD