Photo by Andrew Eccles

One of the most beloved and celebrated singers of our time, 2023 Kennedy Center Honoree Renée Fleming captivates audiences with her sumptuous voice, consummate artistry, and compelling stage presence. At a White House ceremony in 2013, President Obama awarded her the National Medal of Arts, America's highest honor for an individual artist. She brought her voice to a vast new audience in 2014, as the first classical artist ever to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the Super Bowl. Winner of the 2023 Grammy Award (her fifth) for Best Classical Vocal Solo, she sings in the greatest opera houses, concert halls, and theaters around the world.

In 2016, Renée was appointed Artistic Advisor for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Seeking to champion the work being done nationally—both in the medical community and within the arts world—at the intersection of health and the arts, Renée has spearheaded 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 presentation called Music and the Mind, exploring the power of music as it relates to health and the brain. Topics include childhood development, music therapy, and cognitive neuroscience. Since September 2017, Renée has presented Music and the Mind in more than 35 cities around the world, from Boston to Beijing. In May 2023 Renée was appointed by the World Health Organization as a Goodwill Ambassador for Arts and Health. As a musical statesman, Renée has been sought after on numerous distinguished occasions, from the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize ceremony to performances in Beijing during the 2008 Olympic Games. In 2014, she sang in the televised concert at the Brandenburg Gate to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. In 2012, in an historic first, she sang on the balcony of Buckingham Palace in the Diamond Jubilee Concert for HM Queen Elizabeth II. In January 2009, Renée was featured in the televised We Are One: The Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial concert for President Obama. She has also performed for the United States Supreme Court and, in 2009, celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Czech Republic’s “Velvet Revolution” at the invitation of Václav Havel. A ground-breaking distinction came in 2008 when Renée became the first woman in the 125-year history of the Metropolitan Opera to solo headline an opening night gala.

Renée Fleming is a champion of new music and has performed works by a wide range of contemporary composers, including recent compositions by André Previn, Caroline Shaw, Kevin Puts, Anders Hillborg, Henri Dutilleux, Brad Mehldau, and Wayne Shorter. This fourteen-time Grammy nominated artist has recorded everything from Strauss’s complete Daphne to the jazz album Haunted Heart to the movie soundtrack of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

CELEBRATING WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH IN CLASSICAL MUSIC