Renée Fleming

Renée Fleming has been LA Opera's Advisor for Special Projects since  2021.  Serving as advisor and advocate, she launched the annual Los Angeles County Arts and Health Week in 2022.

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 U.S. 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. A groundbreaking 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, and 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. 

After her first LA Opera appearance in a 2002 recital, she made her mainstage company debut in 2006 as Violetta in La Traviata, followed by appearances as Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire (2014) and Margaret Johnson in The Light in the Piazza (2019). Her numerous recitals and concerts with the company over the years have notably featured the West Coast premieres of The Brightness of Light by Kevin Puts (2022) and Penelope by André Previn (2023).

Renée’s 2023/24 season concert calendar included appearances in London, Vienna, Milan, Los Angeles, and at Carnegie Hall. In May at the Metropolitan Opera, she reprised her role in The Hours, a 2022 opera by Kevin Puts based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and award-winning film. In 2023, she portrayed Pat Nixon in a new production of Nixon in China at the Opéra de Paris.  

Renée’s new anthology, Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness, was published in April. 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 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 has recorded everything from complete operas and song recitals to indie rock and jazz. Decca recently released a special double-length album of live recordings from Renée’s greatest performances at the Metropolitan Opera. Renée received the Grammy Award for Best Classical Vocal Solo for her album Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene, with Yannick Nézet-Seguin as pianist. 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. Renée’s voice is featured on the soundtracks of Best Picture Oscar winners The Shape of Water and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.  

Co-Artistic Director of the Aspen Opera Center and VocalArts at the Aspen Music Festival, Renée is also Advisor for Special Projects at LA Opera, and she leads SongStudio at Carnegie Hall. 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’Honneu and honorary doctorates from eight major universities. 

Learn more at ReneeFleming.com.