Renée Fleming

Biography

Renée Fleming is one of the most highly acclaimed singers of our time, performing on the stages of the world’s great opera houses and concert halls. A 2023 Kennedy Center Honoree, 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 2014 she became the first classical artist ever to sing the National Anthem at the Super Bowl. In 2023, the World Health Organization appointed her as a Goodwill Ambassador for Arts and Health.

Renée’s new anthology, Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness, will be published in spring, 2024. A prominent advocate for research at the intersection of arts, health, and neuroscience, as Artistic Advisor to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Renée launched the first ongoing collaboration between America’s national cultural center and its largest health research institute, the National Institutes of Health. She created her own program called Music and the Mind, which she has presented in more than fifty cities around the world, earning Research!America’s Rosenfeld Award for Impact on Public Opinion. In 2020, Renée launched Music and Mind LIVE, a weekly web show, amassing nearly 700,000 views, from 70 countries. She is now an advisor for major initiatives in this field, including the Sound Health Network at the University of California San Francisco and the NeuroArts Blueprint at Johns Hopkins University.

Renée’s latest recital and concert program, Voice of Nature: the Anthropocene, inspired by her 2023 Grammy Award-winning album, includes an original film created by the National Geographic Society to reflect the musical selections. In May at the Metropolitan Opera, she will reprise her role in The Hours, an opera which premiered last year, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and award-winning film. Last March, she portrayed Pat Nixon in a new production of Nixon in China at the Opéra de Paris.

In 2023 Renée received the Grammy Award for Best Classical Vocal Solo for her album Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene, with Yannick Nézet-Seguin as pianist. The same year, Decca released a special double-length album of live recordings from Renée’s iconic performances at the Metropolitan Opera, Renée Fleming: Greatest Moments at the Met. Renée has recorded everything from complete operas and song recitals to indie rock and jazz. Known for bringing new audiences to classical music and opera, she has sung not only with Luciano Pavarotti and Andrea Bocelli, but also with Elton John, Paul Simon, Sting, Josh Groban, and Joan Baez. Renée’s voice is featured on the soundtracks of Best Picture Oscar winners The Shape of Water and The Lord of the Rings.

Fleming’s first book, The Inner Voice, was published by Viking Penguin in 2004 and is now in its 16th printing. Renée’s 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, France’s Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, and honorary doctorates from 8 major universities.


Photo Credit: Andrew Eccles