Renée Fleming Named As 2025 Cincinnati May Festival Director

The Cincinnati May Festival has revealed five-time Grammy Award winner and celebrated soprano Renée Fleming as its 2025 Festival Director, the second ever in the May Festival's innovative artistic leadership model launched in 2024. Inspired by Fleming's consummate artistry and revelatory examination of music at the intersection of the arts and cognitive neuroscience, the 2025 May Festival will be co-curated by Fleming and May Festival Director of Choruses Matthew Swanson and will feature performances by Fleming, baritone Rod Gilfry, May Festival Chorus and May Festival Chamber Choir (Matthew Swanson, director), May Festival Youth Chorus (Jason Alexander Holmes, director), Cincinnati Boychoir (Lisa Peters, director) and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (Cristian Măcelaru, Music Director Designate).

“It is our honor and privilege to welcome five-time Grammy Award winner and renowned soprano Renée Fleming as our 2025 Festival Director,” said Swanson. “Embracing our most cherished traditions while celebrating the vibrancy of contemporary music, Renée has curated an extraordinary series of programs that explore the depths of the human experience—from love and the beauty of dawn to the fragility of life on Earth. I warmly invite everyone to join Renée, the singers of the May Festival Choruses, and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra for a Festival to remember.”

2025 Festival Director Renée Fleming

A 2023 Kennedy Center Honoree, 2013 National Medal of Arts recipient, and five-time Grammy Award winner (18 nominations), Fleming has performed at the greatest opera houses, concert halls, and theaters and has captivated audiences around the world with her extraordinary voice and artistry. Her illustrious career includes historic performances at prestigious events, such as Super Bowl XLVIII, the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing and the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, alongside her recent role as Goodwill Ambassador for the Arts and Health appointed by the World Health Organization.

In 2016, Fleming was appointed Artistic Advisor for The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, where she championed the intersection of health and the arts. She has led the groundbreaking Sound Health initiative, a collaboration with the National Institutes of Health and the National Endowment for the Arts, bringing together neuroscientists, music therapists and arts practitioners to explore the impact of arts on mental and physical well-being. Inspired by this work, Fleming created the presentation Music and the Mind, which delves into topics such as music therapy and cognitive neuroscience. Since 2017, Fleming has presented this program to over 60 cities globally, earning the Research!America Rosenfeld Award for her contributions to the public understanding of these vital connections.

“I'm honored to serve as Festival Director for the 2025 May Festival, and to collaborate with Matthew Swanson and the Chorus,” said Fleming. “Cincinnati is famous for its vibrant music scene, as well as its discerning and engaged audience, giving us the opportunity to offer new and unexpected musical narratives alongside revered works. Beyond music's power to express the most profound ideas and feelings, we are learning more every day about its enormous potential to improve our health and well-being. The Festival is programmed with those goals in mind, and I invite everyone to join us for a celebration of powerful, transformative music-making.”

2025 May Festival

The 2025 May Festival will open on Friday, May 16, 2025 with Giuseppe Verdi's Requiem Mass performed by the May Festival Chorus and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of conductor Ramón Tebar. A profound work born from the composer's grief over the death of his friend, poet Alessandro Manzoni, Verdi's Requiem was completed in 1874 and reflects the composer's deep emotional range, blending operatic intensity with sacred themes. A celebrated interpreter of Verdi's music, through signature portrayals of Violetta in Verdi's La traviata and Desdemona in Verdi's Otello, Fleming has often expressed her deep connection to music by the composer, highlighting his capacity to evoke a wide spectrum of emotions. Curated by Fleming in her role as Festival Director, his performance marks the May Festival's 12th in its 152-year history, underscoring the enduring impact of Verdi's music with its everlasting themes of loss, hope and the human experience.

On Sunday, May 18, 2025, the May Festival Chorus, May Festival Chamber Choir, May Festival Youth Chorus, and Ambassadors Ensemble from the Cincinnati Boychoir join forces for a monumental choral music event at Music Hall. Inspired by Fleming's work in promoting the healing power of music, this unique performance will highlight the transformative effects of community and singing together. The program, called “Chasing the Dawn: A Choral Journey,” will showcase a range of musical styles, as each chorus brings its own distinct voice to the stage. Innovative staging and dynamic lighting effects will create a visually immersive experience of sound and light that enhances the emotional depth of the choral performances. The program will include music by Lili Boulanger, Morten Lauridsen, and others, as well as arrangements by Swanson and Holmes.

The following week on Thursday, May 22, 2025, the May Festival continues with a special presentation of Kevin Puts' innovative new work, The Brightness of Light, a series of songs chronicling the romance of two major 20th-century artists—painter Georgia O'Keeffe and photographer Alfred Stieglitz. Drawn from thousands of letters, and accompanied by projections of O'Keeffe's iconic floral paintings designed by Wendall Harrington, the performance will weave together their correspondences, revealing the fragility of love and the yearning to hold onto it. Renée Fleming, singing as Georgia O'Keeffe, will be joined by baritone Rod Gilfry as Alfred Stieglitz. The program also includes Ralph Vaughan Williams' Serenade to Music and Igor Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms. Former May Festival Principal Conductor Juanjo Mena will conduct the performance.

The 2025 May Festival concludes on Saturday, May 24, 2025 with Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene, inspired by Fleming's 2023 Grammy Award-winning album of the same name. Paired with a film provided by the National Geographic Society, the multimedia program charts humanity's evolving relationship with nature, in the context of climate change, through a blend of Romantic and contemporary songs performed by Fleming, including works by composers Nico Muhly, Kevin Puts and Lord of the Rings' Howard Shore. The May Festival Chorus joins Fleming for the grand Festival conclusion, with works by Giacomo Puccini, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Richard Rodgers.

Additional May Festival Events

In addition to her renowned performance career, Renée Fleming is a passionate educator and advocate for research at the intersection of arts, health and neuroscience. Her latest anthology, Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness, features essays from leading scientists, artists, creative arts therapists, educators and physicians that explore the profound effects of music and the arts on health and the human experience. As Festival Director, Fleming will host a panel discussion on this vital topic as part of the 2025 May Festival activities in addition to a masterclass with area voice students. Further details for both events will be announced at a later time.

In the lead up to the 2025 May Festival, hundreds of singers from the May Festival Chorus, Cincinnati Boychoir and May Festival Youth Chorus will take the stage at Music Hall on Sunday, February 16 for a program called All Together Now, in celebration of the new alliance between the May Festival and Cincinnati Boychoir. The program will feature a new work by Cincinnati's own Howard Helvey, commissioned for the occasion.

Tickets

Subscription ticket packages for the 2025 May Festival and the All Together Now program are currently on sale. Individual tickets for the 2025 May Festival will go on sale to the general public on March 4, 2025. Tickets may be purchased by visiting mayfestival.com, calling the Box Office at 513.381.3300 or visiting the Music Hall Box Office at 1241 Elm Street, Monday through Friday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

To post a comment, you must register and login.