Renée Fleming

Renée Fleming is internationally celebrated for her vocal and dramatic artistry, as well as her dedicated advocacy for the powerful impacts of the creative arts in health. A 2023 Kennedy Center Honoree and winner of five Grammy awards and the US National Medal of Arts, she has sung for momentous occasions from the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony to the Diamond Jubilee for Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace. In 2008, she became the first woman in the 125-year history of the Metropolitan Opera to solo headline an opening night gala, and in 2014, she became the first classical artist ever to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the Super Bowl. In 2023, the World Health Organization appointed her as a Goodwill Ambassador for Arts and Health.

Fleming’s new album The Fiddle and the Drum will be released May 29. A collaboration with 19-time Grammy winning banjo virtuoso Béla Fleck, the album celebrates Appalachian bluegrass and folk music, with contributions from featured artists Dolly Parton, Vince Gill, Jerry Douglas, Aoife O’Donovan, Sierra Hull, and Sarah Jarosz. In 2024 at the Metropolitan Opera, she reprised her role in The Hours, an opera based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and award-winning film. This winter, she returned to the Opéra de Paris with her acclaimed portrayal of Pat Nixon in Nixon in China.

Known for bringing new audiences to classical music and opera, Fleming has sung not only with Luciano Pavarotti and Andrea Bocelli, but also with Elton John, Paul Simon, Sting, Josh Groban, Dead and Company, and Joan Baez. Her voice is featured on the soundtracks of Best Picture Oscar winners The Shape of Water and The Lord of the Rings.

Fleming’s anthology Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness was published in 2024. A prominent advocate for research at the intersection of arts, health, and neuroscience, she created a live program called Music and Mind, which she has presented in more than 70 cities around the world, earning Research!America’s Rosenfeld Award for Impact on Public Opinion and Harvard Medical School’s David Mahoney Neuroscience Prize. She is now an advisor for major initiatives in this field, including the NeuroArts Blueprint at Johns Hopkins University. She launched the Renée Fleming NeuroArts Investigator Awards, funding interdisciplinary research projects by early career scientists in collaboration with creative artists.

Co-Artistic Director of the Aspen Opera Center and VocalArts at the Aspen Music Festival, Fleming is also Advisor for Special Projects at LA Opera and Artist Development Advisor at Wolf Trap Opera. Her other awards include the 2023 Crystal Award from the World Economic Forum in Davos, the Fulbright Lifetime Achievement Medal, Germany’s Cross of the Order of Merit, Sweden’s Polar Music Prize, and honorary doctorates from 10 major universities. www.reneefleming.com.