Soprano Renée Fleming Appointed Director of Cincinnati May Festival

Last week, the Cincinnati May Festival unveiled its 2025 season programming. They also announced the appointment of soprano Renée Fleming as Festival Director.

Driving the news: On October 29th, the Cincinnati May Festival announced Renée Fleming as its 2025 Festival Director. Fleming curates the 2025 season alongside May Festival Director of Choruses Matthew Swanson, which includes works by Kevin Puts featuring Fleming herself, as well as the Verdi Requiem.

Tell me more: Since “retiring” from the Metropolitan Opera in 2017 in a farewell performance of Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier, Renée Fleming has been anything but idle. The five-time Grammy Winner has taken up posts including Creative Consultant with Lyric Opera of Chicago, as well as posts at the Kennedy Center and the Aspen Music Festival. She recently published an anthology called Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness exploring the impact of music on health and human experience.

The Cincinnati May Festival announced that it was inspired by Fleming’s “consummate artistry” as well as her work at the intersection of music and neuroscience. We’re confident her lifelong commitment to excellence will continue to shine in this new role.

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Sara Schabas

Sara Schabas is a Dora-nominated soprano, writer and yoga teacher. She has performed and created leading roles with companies including Vancouver Opera, Pacific Opera Victoria, the Dayton Opera, and Aspen Opera, and is a former member of Barbara Hannigan’s Equilibrium Young Artists. Currently based in Montreal, she is a doctoral student at McGill University — where she recently received the Wirth Vocal Prize — and editor of Art Song Canada magazine.