COLUMBIA — This academic year marks historic arts milestones for the University of South Carolina — the 100th anniversaries of the School of Music and the School of Visual Art and Design.

The programs have produced respected and widely recognized visual artists and musicians, as well as teachers, professors, curators, band leaders and heads of cultural organizations in the region and beyond. The faculty of both have enriched the arts ecosystem in South Carolina.

The School of Music started celebrations in the fall, while the SVAD kicked off in January with an exhibition of former and retired faculty members and alumni. Both are continuing with concerts, exhibitions, talks and other programs in the coming months.

Becoming an interdisciplinary program

SVAD, which is housed in a former grammar school on Senate Street, is using its centennial to honor faculty, alumni and a century of growth for the school, which opened in 1925 as the Department of Fine Arts. 

“Exhibitions and other events will not only showcase work by former faculty and students, but point to significant moments in the history of art, the department in its various iterations and the university, including the admission and accomplishments of artists of color and the introduction of programs in photography and media arts,” said Susan Felleman, a professor who is leading anniversary planning.

For most of its 100 years, SVAD was the department of art with art making and art history classes. It grew slowly, adding areas and shifting emphasis as art trends did.

A major change came in 1998 when the media arts department, with everything from design to film, was integrated into the art department, said Laura Kissel, professor and director of SVAD since 2018. Although it might not have been foreseen, merging the programs positioned the school well for the 21st century as borders have fallen between painting, videography, sculpture, animation and other forms.

“All of us are happy we’re in the School of Visual Art and Design,” Kissel said.

The next big step came a decade ago.

Peter Chametzky was being recruited to chair the USC art department, but wasn’t really interested as he was already director of the School of Art and Design at Southern Illinois University. Then he took a closer look at the department and saw its potential.

“When I got here in 2013, at the first faculty meeting I proposed that we should try to change the designation to school … of something,” Chametzky remembered. “The faculty unanimously agreed; I thought I should step down right then as I’d never have such a consensus again.”

Chametzky said the schools new moniker, “visual art and design,” encapsulated more than just “art.” It “captures the broad scope and variety of teaching, degree granting programs and faculty and student research,” he said. 

The diversity of the school is also its future, Kissel said.

“There have been points of curricular collaboration across all disciplines over the past three decades, but there is more opportunity now,” she said. “There are synergies between studio art and media arts that benefit both. We continue to do it and we must do it.”

Much more than marching

The music school received widespread attention toward the end of 2024 when the marching band participated in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. But in music school terms, that’s old news; in late January the school launched a student-run record label, Greene Street Records.

Major milestones in recent decades include the 1989 opening of the Koger Center for the Arts, now overseen by the School of Music, and construction next door of a music building with a recital hall in 1993. The next year, what had long been the music department became chartered as the School of Music.

The school has long been committed to “the music of our time,” said Tayloe Harding, now entering his 20th year as dean. That includes a recent rebuilding of jazz studies.

“We’ve reinvigorated the jazz program,” Harding said.

The program has added faculty and moved into a former church near the school in 2023. In 2007, the school started a minor in entrepreneurship, which has continued to expand (Greene Street Records is part of that.)

The most recent development has been music leadership education with an emphasis on entrepreneurship, music advocacy, community engagement, and health and wellness, Harding said.

One of the best-known concert series at the school is Southern Exposure, which showcases contemporary music by performers from around the globe. The award-winning series draws large crowds and is highly regarded in the new music world.

As part of the centennial, the school is spotlighting alumni, faculty and students.

“This season the USC Symphony Orchestra is celebrating our current students, our alumni and our faculty,” said Scott Weiss, professor and director of orchestras. Compositions by faculty members Harding, David Kirkland Garner, Fang Man and John Fitz Rogers, and performances by faculty members, students and alumni are part of the orchestra season.

The same is true of Southern Exposure and the Freeman Sunday Concerts, both directed by professor Michael Harley.

“Between the two series, we’ve commissioned five alumni — Andy Akiho, JaRon Brown, David Clay Mettens, Baljkinder Sekhon, Rachel Whelan — and one current doctoral student, Austin Engelhardt, to write pieces that we’re premiering this year,” Harley said. “And the majority of performers on both series are music school faculty, students and alumni.”

While high-profile accomplishments and concerts are important, the biggest impact of the music school is elsewhere.

“We have trained nearly half of all public school (music) teachers in the state,” Harding said. “The state has been profoundly impacted by what we do. South Carolina is a more musical state thanks to the school.”