Soprano Renée Fleming has taken on myriad roles, winning acclaim on stages around the world. She was a knowing, rueful Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier, the titular water sprite in Rusalka, a book editor coping with the AIDS crisis in modern New York, and the heroines of Mozart, Verdi, Handel, and more. The list goes on and on, and includes parts in contemporary operas as well as cutting-edge works with established and emerging composers. And she’s a familiar figure at orchestras, whether in beloved repertoire, new projects by a broad spectrum of composers, or serving as the glamorous star attraction at galas, opening nights, and concerts at orchestras nationwide.
Fleming has taken on an additional role in recent years: passionate advocate for the benefits that music and the arts play in health. She’s shining a light on the emerging scientific research about the intersection of arts and neuroscience, which is no longer a matter of anecdote; she’s making, as she says in this interview, “the strongest, evidenced-based case for the health benefits of the arts.” Fleming launched the first ongoing collaboration between the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, home of the National Symphony Orchestra, and the U.S. National Institutes of Health. And in 2020, she launched Music and Mind LIVE with Renée Fleming, a live-streamed series of conversations between Fleming and scientists and practitioners working at the intersection of music, neuroscience, and healthcare in childhood development, healthy aging, pain and anxiety management, and rehabilitation. Her new book, Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness, brings together wide-ranging essays by scientists, researchers, therapists, educators, and performing artists about the powerful impact of music and the arts on health and development. The World Health Organization recognized her work by appointing her a Goodwill Ambassador for Arts and Health.
Simon Woods: Let me start by asking how this area of music and health became of interest to you. What was the starting point?
Renée Fleming: I became interested in neuroscience and music because I was having my own difficulties with stage fright and somatic pain. Some of us develop physical problems that are the mind’s response to performance pressure. That was certainly what I was dealing with. So I started reading about the mind-body connection, and I noticed that scientists and researchers were studying music, which intrigued me. When I met Dr. Francis Collins [former director of the National Institutes of Health] at a dinner party in 2015, I asked him why. I had just been appointed Artistic Advisor to the Kennedy Center. He told me that there was a major brain initiative underway at the NIH, and that music was a powerful tool for investigating the brain, the most complex object in the known universe. I said, “I think that the Kennedy Center could provide a platform for the science of arts experiences. The audience would be fascinated to learn about what happens when we are engaged with music, listening, participating, and so on.” That’s how it began. [Kennedy Center President] Deborah Rutter agreed, and we launched this collaboration. The NEA also came on board, and it’s been continuing ever since. The whole field is now exploding. There’s so much going on, it’s somewhat overwhelming.
Woods: The word overwhelming is relevant, because I confess I was simply unprepared for a 500-page book with so much impressive content. When you started working on the book, was it just a small idea that grew and grew? How did it emerge, the actual process of producing the book?
Fleming: I was inspired by David Rubenstein’s books that he seems to create with such ease. He transcribes interviews that he’s given, and the first one that I read was about leadership. I thought I should do this for arts and health, as a gift to the field, to share the breadth of what’s happening right now. This was almost three years ago. My editor at Viking Penguin Random House, who published The Inner Voice, loved the idea. He had been asking me for a few years for another book. But he said, “We don’t want a follow-up to your first book. I want you to make a case for the arts. I want you to be an advocate for the arts.”
Edited by Renée Fleming, Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness was published in April of this year. For the book, Fleming has curated a collection of essays from leading scientists, artists, creative arts therapists, educators, and healthcare providers about the powerful impacts of music and the arts on health and the human experience. Music and Mind also features essays by musicians including Yo-Yo Ma, Roseanne Cash, and Rhiannon Giddens. Learn more here.
I sat on the request for a while, and then I said, “I think I should make the strongest, evidenced-based case for the health benefits of the arts, because people care about physical and mental health, and wellness in general.” He loved that idea. I never thought about length. I was focused on content, and making sure that I covered as many of the areas as I could.
It was only at the end that my editor said, “You know, this is a lot, it’s 41 different essays!” The great thing is people can pick and choose what interests them. It’s not something you need to read cover to cover. But if you care about childhood development, there are chapters about that, or conditions of aging, like dementia, or movement disorders, institutional approaches, and artists’ perspectives.
Woods: I love that it’s like a kind of crystal viewed from different angles. You can view it through an artistic lens, through a sociological angle, or from a scientific angle. You provide many ways into the subject. Which brings me to the next question, because many people in our field know something about this subject. But I don’t think very many people will have much idea about the sheer range of options and impact. Why do you think this is so important for us? And why now?
Fleming: I believe that the arts should be embedded in healthcare, period. One palliative care expert said just a couple of weeks ago that medicine treats disease and not human beings. This is why integrative medicine has changed the game for healthcare in general. To forget that we are whole is to overlook so much: the patient’s emotional journey and participation in the healing process, the family’s support, the ecosystem of health, and frankly, the morale of our caregivers, which we saw increasingly challenged during COVID.
At the National Institutes of Health, Renée Fleming spoke about “Music and the Mind” and how the arts, health, and neuroscience interact. She has presented her “Music and the Mind” program in more than 50 cities around the world. Photo courtesy of the National Institutes of Health.
There are tremendous benefits for childhood development, and orchestras have recognized that. Orchestras have actually funded much of the research in that area. Because of technology, and advances in brain imaging, all of these effects can finally be measured. That’s why the NIH has now funded $35 million in research, and they plan on another $40 million—that’s a big change.
Woods: The last time I saw you was at the recent White House/NEA gathering on arts and health, and I was very struck by the comments from U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, who used a phrase about the “epidemic of loneliness and isolation.” You’ve talked to him a lot, and I wonder whether you’d like to address that.
Fleming: I think the arts weren’t as much in his focus previously. At the beginning of the pandemic when I had the webinar, I was coaxing him to include this in his thinking about loneliness and isolation. He is now on board with it—because the endorphins that are produced just from listening to music make a huge difference to mental health.
I believe that the arts should be embedded in healthcare.
Another powerful application of music is in creative aging for people who are in relatively good health. Brain health is very important—and learning new things has huge benefits. Picking up an instrument activates not only hearing and sight but all the senses. When we’re engaging with music, activity appears in every known mapped area of the brain. Adding the translational piece, which is sight and hearing, to your hands and motor skills, playing an instrument, makes it very complex.
Additionally, dementia is a huge focus of the research right now. Music memory is the last to go in patients with dementia. Often a patient who can’t recognize family members can recall and sing all of the lyrics of a song from adolescence. Scientists are exploring the reasons why, and looking for ways to sustain periods of lucidity.
Woods: My mother died from Alzheimer’s last year, and the very last thing I did with her was to play music that she loved in her life, when many of her other faculties had gone. So I definitely relate to that in a very personal way.
Fleming: Wonderful.
Renée Fleming in discussion with former National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins. Photo courtesy of the National Institutes of Health.
Woods: I find it interesting that someone like you, who have spent your entire career in the world of artistry at the highest level, have now turned to the deep extrinsic impact that music can make, rather than impact for the art in itself. I wondered whether you felt any kind of conflict there, any loyalty to this notion of pure artistry as opposed to this idea of music and its potential broader impacts.
Fleming: I was always interested in the actual effects of music-making because I’ve spent most of my career concertizing. As I tour, I am very connected to the audience, and I’m thinking about how they’re receiving what I’ve programmed. In most of the programs I’ve created, I have always thought about trying to reach everybody.
I don’t think I ever thought of music and art in a vacuum. I had too many other interests, was always juggling various projects. I started advising opera companies quite a while ago with Lyric Opera [of Chicago], I was there for 10 years. I’ve been at the Kennedy Center for seven, I think. And I’m also with LA Opera now. Once I stepped over to that side, which was advisory and administrative, it was exciting to see it from both views. The advantage I’ve had in these positions is that I have the mile-high view, able to see things that I believe could be helpful. With my own career, I’m focused on the day to day. It has been a tremendous pleasure and challenge—and very stimulating—to have to think about it from the presentational side.
Woods: What I find wonderful is that you’re using your platform, you’re using your voice and your reputation that you’ve built up over decades as an artist, to draw attention to something that’s so vital. I love that.
Fleming: Thank you.
One goal is to create a stronger pipeline to support research. I’m funding grants for scientists pairing with artists.
Woods: Talk to me a little bit about NeuroArts, and your foundation, and what’s going on there.
Fleming: Susan Magsamen has a lab at Johns Hopkins, and she and Ruth Katz from the Aspen Institute founded the NeuroArts Blueprint; this was before I met them. It’s a visionary initiative, quite ambitious. It seeks to create a new field, taking what’s been siloed in terms of research and practice, and bringing it all together, to make it really count for something. They’ll have a new international resource center in September. Neuroarts is the umbrella that encompasses all aesthetic experiences: visual art, nature, architecture, movement, and music. But I think of music as the first pillar, because it has received the bulk of the research at this point.
We’ve just launched the Renée Fleming Neuroarts Investigator Awards, and the first winners were announced last month. The goal is to create a stronger pipeline to support research. I’m funding grants for scientists pairing with artists. We had very strong submissions. I’m looking for donors to help with sponsorships so I can at least double the number of awards next year. And the NIH, working with the Foundation for the NIH, will follow up with full fellowships.
Renée Fleming, second from right, meets scientists and researchers at the National Institutes of Health, among them former NIH Director Francis Collins, third from right. Photo courtesy of the National Institutes of Health.
Woods: I want to come back to orchestras. There are many orchestras that have music and health programs of one kind or another, and I’m interested in the implications of this work for how we frame our purpose on why we exist. I want you to fantasize for a minute about how you could imagine this work becoming rooted in orchestras 10 years from now. Where could this take us?
Fleming: Orchestras have absolutely led the way. When the Musikverein started presenting concerts for Alzheimer’s patients and caregivers, it was news around the world, and this was just two years ago. I was surprised, honestly, because this is a hallowed hall at the pinnacle of music presentation. I think adding health-related initiatives is important for orchestras: programs to aid people who are fragile, or programs related to elder care, children and people with special needs, as well as caregivers and healthcare workers.
Adding health-related initiatives is important for orchestras: programs to aid people who are fragile, or programs related to elder care, children and people with special needs, as well as caregivers and healthcare workers.
Woods: We live in such a fragmented age. It’s a cliché to say that music brings us together and bridges divides. But what I’m hearing you say now is that there is some actual science underpinning that, which might give us a sense of purpose around how we bring people together in a fragmented society. One of the things that really blew my mind was learning about Hannah and Antonio Damasio’s work at the University of Southern California studying the way young people’s brains change and grow as they engage with music. We talk a lot about the impact of music on young people’s development. But now it’s not only talk, it’s actually backed up with scientific fact. Our case-making can be rooted in knowledge and science, not just hypothesis. I don’t think we’ve even started to make the most of that in terms of how we present the case for funding for this work.
Fleming: Yes, it has to be evidence-based. We’re making baby steps, but it’s really happening. Scientists have told me, “Renée, that the National Institutes of Health is funding this research sends a massive message to the world of science and medicine.” It’s still a process, and there’s a big body of evidence that needs to be created. But it’s definitely happening.
Picking up an instrument activates not only hearing and sight but all the senses. When we’re engaging with music, activity appears in every known mapped area of the brain.
Woods: What else would you like to tell Symphony readers that we haven’t yet talked about?
Fleming: Ben Folds’s chapter in the book is fascinating, because it’s about orchestra morale, about the value of an orchestra, and the consideration that is due to the members of an orchestra. Ben does a series bringing interesting popular musicians together with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center. I love that he’s lobbying performers from popular music for orchestrations that are rewarding for the players.
The other thing I want to mention is an idea I have, if I can find a partner, to do a better job connecting the public to extant services provided by performing arts organizations for health. We’re loosely calling it Art Care. There’s so much available to people and they’re unaware of it. For instance, special concerts for children with special needs, or adults with dementia, or caregivers. To have it available on an app by zip code would be practical. And there’s great work happening right now at the Louisville Orchestra with their music director, Teddy Abrams, with cultural health and wellness research.
Let’s do a better job connecting the public to extant services provided by performing arts organizations for health. For instance, special concerts for children with special needs, or adults with dementia, or caregivers.
Woods: Teddy strikes me as a very natural partner for you, because like you, he is an artist who’s thinking about bigger impacts beyond the intrinsic impact of the music. He’s doing amazing things there in terms of community relationships as well.
Fleming: I was just there, and I was very impressed with what he’s doing.
Woods: I want to wrap up by saying thank you, Renée. You’ve done us all a tremendous service and I feel like this is a game-changing moment. And it wasn’t until I started delving into this amazing book that I realized quite the magnitude of what we were dealing with. I sense that we’re just at the beginning of this, and we’ll look back and note that this was the moment when it all started.
Fleming: Thank you.
