The Fine Arts Center of Greenville County, the first specialized arts school in South Carolina, was established in August, 1974.

Students apply to the Center and are selected on the basis of talent, interest, motivation, and commitment to their discipline and are able to study theatre, dance, visual arts, music, creative writing, or digital filmmaking.

The purpose of the Fine Arts Center is to provide advanced comprehensive arts instruction to students who are artistically talented and who wish to take an intensive pre-professional program of study.

Students attend the Fine Arts Center five days a week in the morning or afternoon for 110 minutes of instruction, spending the remainder of their time in other academic work at the home high school.

Each year approximately 400 students attend the Fine Arts Center, and, of that number, some ninety percent go on to higher education.

A native of Greenville, Mr. Rice graduated from Furman University with Honors. As a graduate student in voice performance at Northwestern University, he sang with the famed Chicago Symphony Chorus both locally and at Carnegie Hall, and participated in its subsequent recording sessions. He has served an apprenticeship with noted vocal coach/accompanist Warren Jones in New York; has taught French in the Gifted and Talented Program of Greenville County Schools; was named Fine Arts Center Teacher of the Year ‘88-‘89 and ‘03-‘04 (when he was also first runner-up for the Greenville County School District Teacher of the Year); and has coached/accompanied the South Carolina All-State Honors Chorus, The Singing Christmas Tree, The Greenville Savoyards, The South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts vocal program, The Furman University Opera Workshop, and The Greenville Chorale.  He is currently an active member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing, the National Romance Language Honor Society, and the Phi Mu Alpha Professional Music Fraternity. A lover of languages, he is proficient in French, Italian and German and is knowledgeable in several others.

FAC alumnus and internationally renowned performer Phillip Boykin, reminisces: “Michael Rice was my first voice teacher… I can still remember the excitement on his face when he showed my class videos of famous opera singers, teaching us what to look for in each performance. For instance, as he explained Leontyne Price’s farewell performance of Aida, he noted how she held and sang her high note while at the same time slowly turning her head to the right.  He told us about how the sold-out crowd at the Met applauded for about five minutes, and how Mrs. Price said ‘Thank you’ by discreetly blinking her eyes, remaining in character. Seeing this African-American woman singing her heart out made me realize at that moment that maybe I could become an opera singer. I had grown up in low-income housing and had never even heard of opera, but I became just as excited as Mr. Rice as he explained to us that even the greatest voice artists started out somewhere learning to sing just as we were doing, assuring us that if we worked hard, we could accomplish our own goals and dreams…I also remember Mr. Rice taking our class on field trips. He would load us up in his little blue car, turn on the cruise control and away we’d go. Many of us could not afford to pay for the trips, but he wouldn’t let us miss them… even if it meant he had to pay. At the annual NATS competitions, his students were the stars because they always won or placed in every category they entered.  I will never forget the time Michael arranged for us to see Kathleen Battle in North Carolina. After the concert he took us backstage; we got to talk with her, shake her hand, and take pictures. I was blown away!  This excitement was the start of it all for me.”

American mezzo-soprano Elizabeth Bishop, hailed by Opera News for her "gorgeous voice," and who has excelled in opera and concert stages across the country in music ranging from the baroque to the contemporary, writes, “To sum up what Michael means to me in just a few sentences is almost impossible.   In the twenty-five years that I have known him, he has been at different times my teacher, my friend, my accompanist, my colleague, and my cheering section.  Since he is retiring from the profession, I want to praise his most durable lesson plan: expectations.  When a teacher is respected the way Michael has been, his influence covers more than just his subject matter.  Mike expected us to do well in school; he made no bones about the fact that our education was the first priority and that shirking any part of it was unacceptable.  He demanded that we give our best efforts towards anything that we undertook, not just music...not just HIS class. Gaining his approval was difficult and therefore highly prized; letting him down was not an experience anyone cared to repeat.   I don't think many of us realized at the time how valuable the gift of high expectations can be, and I will always be grateful to Michael, both as a singer and as a person, for setting the bar just a little higher than I could jump.”  

David Daniels, about whom a New York Times reviewer has written, “To say that he is the most acclaimed countertenor of the day, perhaps the best ever, is to understate his achievement,” states that “Michael Rice could be a coach in any opera house in the world—he is as good as anyone you would work with anywhere. The Fine Arts Center is lucky to have had such a teacher all these years, so committed to the school and to the community. Certainly, working with him professionally for the past three years is the smartest thing I’ve done for my career.”

According to retired FAC guidance counselor Dot Bishop, Mr. Rice is “without a doubt the best voice teacher for young voices in the country.  His students have consistently proven this true for over thirty years. Envied and emulated by voice teachers all over the United States, he not only instructs young people on the mechanics of singing, but gives them a deep and comprehensive appreciation for music and musicians as he sets impressively high standards for his students that they almost always meet and exceed.” She doesn’t stop with his professional accomplishments, however: “Michael’s sense of humor and his brilliant mind make him a delightful friend and co-worker; most of my happy memories of the six years I worked at the Fine Arts Center include Michael Rice and his stories.  One of my favorites was the description of Michael’s performance in a big concert at the Peace Center with his white shirt tail waving out of his open fly… Because of his amazing ability to spell and write flawlessly, he is able to find and point out typographical errors in newspapers and magazines.  He has an extensive collection of comical names from wedding accounts and obituaries, which he delights to share with us along with all the interesting and colorful accounts of his visits to fascinating destinations…In short, I love and admire this man, and am honored to call him ‘friend.’”

Retired FAC metals instructor Susan Willis says, “I have long valued my friendship with Michael because he is one of those rare individuals who moves easily from the sublime to the silly, not only with friends, colleagues and other professionals, but also with students. He is thoughtful, serious to a fault, but then comes the punch line!...I will never forget the time Michael left his condominium to come to work and discovered that his car had been stolen. And not only stolen, but used as the getaway car in a robbery. And not only stolen and used in a robbery, but totaled in the process, as he learned when he watched the news that night and recognized his car!”

Though Mr. Rice has already received numerous invitations to work professionally with various choral groups and individuals upon his retirement this month, he plans to take a year to spend time with his family and to travel before considering any such opportunities.

Michael V. Rice, voice instructor, singer, accompanist, choral director, language teacher and linguistic coach, world traveler, raconteur, ironist, composer of limericks, and grammarian/editor extraordinaire, is retiring after having completed his 31st year at FAC.

Mr. Rice’s passion for music, language, and culture has taken him throughout South America, Africa, the British Isles and continental Europe, Asia, Scandinavia, the Caribbean and the South Pacific.  He has served as an Ambassador for Friendship to Romania and participated in the Baroque Music festival in Vienna, Austria. His vocal ensemble, Spectrum, performed at the tenth annual celebration, Springtime in Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia, and he has toured Italy, Austria, and West Germany with the Greenville County Youth Orchestra as well as performed with the Furman University Singers in Russia, Estonia and Finland, and participated as an accompanist and/or singer in concert tours to England, Denmark, Germany, Russia, Estonia, and Finland. In 2000, he took part in the International Course and Festival for Choral Conductors in Varna, Bulgaria.