Renée Fleming’s interests and accomplishments are so wide-ranging that her biography reads like a mashup of several different overachievers all rolled into one.

One of the most highly acclaimed singers of our time, she is a National Medal of Arts recipient who has sung for momentous occasions ranging from the memorial service at Ground Zero after 9/11 and the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony to the soundtrack for The Lord of the Rings and the Super Bowl, where she was the first classical artist ever to sing the National Anthem.

Her most recent recording, which focused on nature as both inspiration and casualty of humans, was awarded the 2023 Grammy for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album. Outside of her singing career, she has become a leading advocate for research at the intersection of arts, health, and neuroscience, launching a collaboration between the Kennedy Center and the National Institutes for Health and exploring the power of music as it relates to health and the brain. She is an advocate for literacy, designed her own fragrance, and is the eponym for both a dessert created by master chef Daniel Boulud and an iris.

At the center of it all is her stunning voice, on display in Hill Auditorium for the first time since 2011 in a recital with pianist Inon Barnatan, who will also perform at UMS with the Jerusalem Quartet a week later. “Fleming has consistent mastery over the entire range, yet each part has its own distinctive color, like a river that gleams differently when the sun catches different parts of it.” (The Sydney Morning Herald)