Renée Fleming is one of the most acclaimed singers of our time, performing on the stages of the world’s greatest opera houses and concert halls. Honored with five Grammy® awards and the US National Medal of Arts, Renée has sung for momentous occasions from the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony to the Diamond Jubilee Concert for Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace. In 2014 Renée became the first classical artist ever to sing the National Anthem at the Super Bowl. A ground-breaking distinction came in 2008 when she became the first woman in the 125-year history of the Metropolitan Opera to solo headline an opening night gala.
Renée’s concert calendar this season includes appearances in Berlin, Vienna, Amsterdam, Milan, London, Los Angeles, Chicago, and at Carnegie Hall. In November, Renée starred in the world premiere staging of The Hours, a new opera by Kevin Puts based on the best-selling novel and award-winning film, at the Metropolitan Opera. In the spring, she will portray Pat Nixon in Nixon in China at the Opéra de Paris. Renée is currently starring in a series of IMAX films, Renée Fleming’s Cities That Sing. Each episode highlights the music of a great cultural capital, with performances and visits to notable locations. The first two episodes, about Paris and Venice respectively, premiere this spring.
Renée has recorded everything from complete operas and song recitals to indie rock and jazz. In January 2023, Decca released a special double-length album of live recordings from Renée’s greatest performances at the Metropolitan Opera. In February 2023, Renée received the Grammy Award (her fifth) for Best Classical Vocal Solo for her album Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene, with Yannick Nézet-Seguin as pianist. A collection of classical songs and specially commissioned world premieres, the album focuses on nature as both inspiration and victim of human activity. Known for bringing new audiences to classical music and opera, Renée has sung not only with Luciano Pavarotti and Andrea Bocelli, but also with Elton John, Paul Simon, Sting, Josh Groban, and Joan Baez. She has hosted a wide variety of television and radio broadcasts, including the Metropolitan Opera’s Live in HD series and Live from Lincoln Center. Her voice is featured on the soundtracks of Best Picture Oscar winners The Shape of Water and The Lord of the Rings.
In recent years, Renée has become known as a leading advocate for research at the intersection of arts, health, and neuroscience. As Artistic Advisor to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, she launched the first ongoing collaboration between America’s national cultural center and its largest health research institute, the National Institutes of Health. In association with the National Endowment for the Arts, Sound Health brings together leading neuroscientists, music therapists and arts practitioners to better understand the impact of arts on the mind and body. Inspired by the Sound Health initiative, Renée has created a program called Music and the Mind, which she has presented in more than 50 cities around the world, earning Research!America’s 2020 Isadore Rosenfeld Award for Impact on Public Opinion. In 2020, Renée launched Music and Mind LIVE, a weekly web show exploring the connections between arts, human health, and the brain, 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 book The Inner Voice was published by Viking Penguin in 2004 and is now in its sixteenth printing. It is also published in France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Poland, Russia, and China. Advisor for Special Projects at LA Opera, Renée also leads SongStudio at Carnegie Hall. She is Co-Director of the Aspen Opera Center and VocalArts at the Aspen Music Festival. Renée’s other awards include the Fulbright Lifetime Achievement Medal, Germany’s Cross of the Order of Merit, Sweden’s Polar Music Prize, and France’s Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur. www.reneefleming.com