Internationally acclaimed, five-time Grammy-winning soprano Renée Fleming is performing Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene at The Strathmore on May 27.
Inspired by the Grammy-winning album, the evening pairs music with an original film created by the National Geographic Society. Together, the sounds and imagery are meant to reflect on humanity’s relationship with the natural world. Tickets are on sale starting at $48.
We asked Fleming, who resides in McLean, about the show and what effect she hopes it will have on the audience.
Why perform The Anthropocene program at the Strathmore?
I’ve been to concerts there, and I’ve performed there. It’s always trying to work out, ‘What venue is perfect for the event?’ And I definitely wanted to do this program in the DMV area because I worked on it with National Geographic.
What inspired you to make this album?
The pandemic. It was a harrowing time for everybody, obviously, but the thing that gave me comfort and solace was being outside. I didn’t want to come in. I had just moved to our house in McLean, and I loved it. The garden — the whole summer it was just so beautiful.
And once I discovered neuroarts, — one of the pillars of neuroarts is being in nature and how that is a completely aesthetic experience for people. And so I was working on this album with Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and I said, ‘Why don’t we look at a juxtaposition between the gorgeous song literature of the late 19th century, early 20th century, and what composers are doing now?’ And we commissioned several pieces for this, and it makes for a terrific comparison.
How did you get National Geographic involved in the project?
DC has been really good for me, because I go to dinner parties and I meet incredible people. I ended up sitting next to somebody who works very closely with National Geographic, and I said, ‘Well, that would be my dream,’ we were just chatting about this program, and he said, ‘Oh, I know the CEO, I’ll arrange that.’ And it was literally a two-minute call. And we worked really closely with the team that does all the ocean work. So, the films have a kind of a focus on that. And it was just three weeks later, I was already touring [with the show].
What do you hope people will get out of the show when they come and see it?
Hopefully it encourages people to get involved and to support something or get involved locally. I do think raising awareness has been extremely helpful. I’m now in the process of rewilding part of my yard. And if it goes well, I’ll keep growing it, because we discovered that we had wild milkweed [so] we had all these Monarch butterflies last year. So now my neighbors and I are totally into it.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Feature photo by Marvin Joseph
