Three Key Takeaways
- FAMU has hired Dr. Imani Francis as its first full-time voice professor in four years, restoring a permanent faculty position in vocal performance.
- Francis brings extensive opera experience and advanced academic credentials, including a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Louisiana State University.
- The appointment expands FAMU’s music program beyond its nationally renowned Marching “100,”strengthening the university’s academic vocal offerings and giving students access to full-time instruction in voice.
FAMU is strengthening its academic music program with the appointment of Imani Francis, DMA, a soprano with professional opera experience and advanced academic training, as its full-time professor of voice.
The hiring restores a position that has been vacant for four years and gives FAMU students a permanent faculty member dedicated to vocal instruction.
The university’s music program is perhaps best known nationally for the Marching “100,” its celebrated marching band whose performances have made FAMU one of the most recognizable names in collegiate music. But the band is only part of a broader musical tradition at the university.
FAMU also has established programs in jazz studies, music education and other areas of musical study. Its jazz tradition includes a strong ensemble history and notable alumni such as brothers Cannonball and Nat Adderley, who went on to distinguished careers as jazz musicians. The university has also expanded its focus on the business side of music through the Adderley Music Institute, reflecting a broader effort to prepare students for careers across the music industry.
Still, the Marching “100” remains by far the university’s most recognizable musical institution and its defining cultural symbol.
Against that backdrop, Francis’s appointment represents a quieter but significant investment in another part of FAMU’s music program: vocal performance.
Mark Butler, FAMU’s director of choral activities, said the hiring followed years of efforts to bring a full-time voice faculty member back to the department.
“I am ecstatically thrilled about our department’s new hire,” Butler said in announcing Francis’s appointment.
Francis comes to FAMU with a combination of academic credentials and professional performance experience.
A New Orleans native, she received a vocal scholarship to the Boston Conservatory, now Boston Conservatory at Berklee College of Music, where she earned a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance in May 2020.
Her operatic career began with New Orleans Opera, where she made her debut in 2021 as Clara and the Strawberry Woman in George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. She later performed the role of Gretel in Hansel and Gretel with the company in 2022.
Her other roles have included Almirena in Handel’s Rinaldo, La Ciesca in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, Fiordiligi in Mozart’s Così fan tutte, Pamina in The Magic Flute and Musetta in Puccini’s La Bohème.
Francis has competed successfully in vocal competitions sponsored by the National Association of Teachers of Singing. She won state and regional competitions between 2020 and 2021 and, in 2022, placed second in the NATS regional competition in the Lower Advanced Treble category. She won first place in the Upper American Negro Spiritual category and received the Governor’s Award as the conference’s outstanding first-place winner.
Her graduate education took her to Louisiana State University, where she earned a Master of Music degree in 2022 before completing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree.
Her appointment gives FAMU a faculty member whose career encompasses both professional performance and academic study, a combination that can be particularly valuable for students preparing for careers in vocal performance, opera, music education and related fields.
Francis' hiring restores a full-time academic resource that students interested in voice have lacked for several years. The absence of a permanent voice professor meant that specialized vocal instruction could not be anchored by a full-time faculty member whose primary responsibility was developing students in the discipline.
Francis’s arrival changes that.
Francis now becomes part of a music faculty tasked with developing the next generation of performers and musicians at a university whose musical reputation has been built on both tradition and reinvention.
While her appointment is not likely to change the sound most people associate with the university, the thunderous precision of the Marching “100.” It could give new voice to developing a full music department and broaden the university’s musical identity, strengthening vocal instruction, choral and opera opportunities, and performance on the concert stage.