Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra Music Director and Principal Symphonic Conductor Rossen Milanov conducts the CSO Thursday in the Amphitheater.
For five-time Grammy Award winner Renée Fleming, music is the air she breathes.
Fleming, a world-renowned soprano, said it’s been about 45 years since she’s last been to Chautauqua, but this weekend marks her return as she takes the stage at 8:15 p.m. Saturday in the Amphitheater with the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Rossen Milanov.
Together, they’ll perform Fleming’s new multi-media program “Voice of Nature: the Anthropocene.” Inspired by her Grammy-winning album of the same name, the program includes a wide range of songs, from George Frideric Handel to music from “The Lord of the Rings,” and the concert includes a film created by National Geographic specifically for the program. Fleming wanted to bring Anthropocene on the road, and when, by coincidence, she met someone at a dinner party who was able to put her in contact with NatGeo’s CEO, it took all of a three-minute phone call to agree on the films.
The word “anthropocene” denotes the era in which humans started having a noticeable impact on the environment. The album was created in collaboration with pianist Yannick Nézet-Séguin and commissions from Nico Muhly, Caroline Shaw and Kevin Puts.
Being grounded during the pandemic “was a bit of a shock,” so Fleming’s way of coping was by being outside all the time; she had just moved to the Virginia area and said being able to walk out into the green of nature every morning was very healing. She was reminded of the depth of connection that humans hold with the natural world — after all, for most of human history, we have not lived in houses.
“The idea (with the program) is to remind people how incredible the planet is, and biodiversity. The Anthropocene part is in there ,too,” Fleming said. “I want people to have a positive experience, so it’s not too much negativity — because even with this, you can see that it has a strong effect on people. Most of my audience, we all know that man has not had a great effect on the environment. It’s been a wonderful project and I hope to keep doing it for a while.”
When Fleming first came to Chautauqua, she realized she absolutely loved it — “it just captured my imagination,” she said. The connections here are unique as well — for her, one of those early connections became a lifelong friend currently working at the Houston Grand Opera.
“I was too young to comprehend the continued learning piece and morality. I just thought it was a beautiful place, being right on the lake,” Fleming said. “And of course, musically and artistically, I’ve grown a lot.”
Fleming grew up in Rochester, New York, with parents who were vocal teachers; she went on to study at The Juilliard School and holds degrees from the State University of New York at Potsdam and the Eastman School of Music. In 2013, President Barack Obama awarded her with America’s highest honor for an individual artist — the National Medal of Arts — and in 2014 she was the first ever classical artist to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the Super Bowl. She’s sung for the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, and in 2023 she was named a Kennedy Center Honoree.
Fleming’s interests and passions extend far beyond performing. She aids young singers at the precipice of their career, and sits on the boards of the Carnegie Hall Corporation, Sing for Hope, Asia Society, and the Polyphony Foundation. An advocate for research on the arts and health, Fleming created Sound Health, a collaboration between the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the National Institutes of Health, and she recently released a book titled Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness. It’s this work, in addition to her renown as a vocalist, that brings her back to Chautauqua, and why Week Six for the Chautauqua Lecture Series is themed “Exploring the Transformative Power of Music with Renée Fleming.”
Fleming will be in residence for three days at Chautauqua, giving an Opera Conservatory Masterclass at 2 p.m. Sunday in Fletcher Music Hall (which requires an additional, but free, ticket) and then opening the lecture platform at 10:45 a.m. Monday in the Amp with Dr. Francis Collins, a close partner in her work on music and wellness.
For Music and the Mind alone, Fleming’s spoken on this work in more than 35 cities around the world — from Boston to Beijing — and earned Research!America’s Rosenfeld Award for Impact on Public Opinion.
“I feel very privileged to be able to do what I do,” she said. “I’ve traveled the world because of music.”
