Renée Fleming

Renée Lynn Fleming (born February 14, 1959) is an American soprano and actress, known for performances in opera, concerts, recordings, theater, film, and at major public occasions. A recipient of the National Medal of Arts, Fleming has been nominated for 18 Grammy Awards and has won five times. In December 2023, she was one of five recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors. Other notable honors have included the Crystal Award from the World Economic Forum in Davos, the Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur from the French government, Germany's Cross of the Order of Merit, Sweden's Polar Music Prize and honorary membership in England's Royal Academy of Music. Unusual among artists whose careers began in opera, Fleming has achieved name recognition beyond the classical music world.

Fleming has a full lyric soprano voice. She has performed coloratura, lyric, and lighter spinto soprano operatic roles in Italian, German, French, Czech, and Russian, aside from her native English. A significant portion of her career has been the performance of new music, including world premieres of operas, concert pieces, and songs composed for her by André Previn, Caroline Shaw, Kevin Puts, Anders Hillborg, Nico Muhly, Henri Dutilleux, Brad Mehldau, and Wayne Shorter. In 2008, Fleming became the first woman in the 125-year history of the Metropolitan Opera (the Met) to solo headline a season opening night gala. Conductor Sir Georg Solti said of Fleming: "In my long life, I have met maybe two sopranos with this quality of singing."

Beyond opera, Fleming has sung and recorded lieder, chansons, jazz, musical theatre, and indie rock, and she has performed with a wide range of artists, including Luciano Pavarotti, Lou Reed, Wynton Marsalis, Paul Simon, Andrea Bocelli, Sting, John Prine, Joe Jackson and Dead & Company. A 2018 Tony Award nominee, Fleming has acted on Broadway and in theatrical productions in London, Los Angeles and Chicago. Fleming has also recorded songs for the soundtracks of several major films, two of which won the Academy Award for Best Picture (The Shape of Water and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King). Fleming has made numerous television appearances, and she is the only classical singer to have performed the US National Anthem at the Super Bowl. In July, 2025, she made her directing debut with a production of Mozart's Così fan tutte at the Aspen Music Festival and School.

Fleming is a prominent advocate for awareness of the impact of music and the creative arts on health and neuroscience, winning a Research!America award for Impact on Public Opinion. In May 2023, Fleming was appointed by the World Health Organization as a Goodwill Ambassador for Arts and Health. In 2024, she launched the Renée Fleming Neuroarts Investigator Awards in partnership with the NeuroArts Blueprint Initiative at Johns Hopkins University and the Aspen Institute. Presented annually, the grants fund interdisciplinary research by early career scientists in collaboration with arts practitioners. In April 2024, Penguin Random House published Fleming's anthology Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness. In January 2025, Fleming was appointed as an inaugural member of the World Economic Forum Global Arts and Culture Council.