Renée Fleming’s Savannah appearance includes music, scientific exploration
A special blend of artistry and advocacy is coming to town as renowned opera singer and Kennedy Center Honoree Renée Fleming brings her Grammy Awardwinning album “Voice of Nature: the Anthropocene” and celebrated presentation series “Music and Mind” to the 2024 Savannah Music Festival.
Fleming’s astounding career has included performances at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony to the Super Bowl, where she was the first classical artist to sing the national anthem. When the pandemic halted touring, her career grew into new arenas. During lockdown, Fleming found comfort and balance in spending time outside. Paired with a news cycle flooded with climate change, these walks reinvigorated her appreciation of nature and presented new possibilities she explored, naturally, through creativity.
“Human beings are hard-wired for artistic expression and creativity. It’s clear we evolved this way for social cohesion, which is crucial for survival, but also as a way to share, process, and understand our emotions and life events—large or small, tragic or joyful,” Fleming said. “In arts and creative expression, we can find common ground and bridge ever more alarming divisions, and combat isolation and loneliness, which, in our digital age (and in the aftermath of a pandemic) are at epidemic proportions.”
Inspired by the reflections of Romantic-era creatives and contemporary artists, “Voice of Nature: the Anthropocene” is Fleming’s investigation of nature as a source of inspiration and a victim of humanity’s cruelties. Collaborating with her close friend Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the album mixes classical, Romantic and contemporary stylings. Her Savannah Music Festival performance will include pieces from the album, including pieces from Handel and Björk, a track she performed in “The Lord of the Rings” and original pieces by Kevin Puts and Nico Muhly.
Fleming was delighted when the album received a Grammy for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album in 2023, so she reached out to the National Geographic Society to help elevate the album to new levels. The result is a beautiful film that will be presented in the second half of Fleming’s performance at the festival, offering a robust experience of the natural world as both a muse and a vulnerable being. and