In January, Renee Fleming, one of the most legendary sopranos of our time,  took the stage at the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall. It’s an action that Fleming, a National Medal of the Arts recipient and five-time Grammy Award winner, has taken countless times. Fleming has performed on some of the world’s largest stages, from the field of Super Bowl XLVIII to the West Lawn of Washington D.C. and international concert halls. As such, one would assume that a love of performing was always something that was innate in Fleming, who presented her acclaimed concert program, Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene in Sarasota. 

“What performing gives me has been changeable,” says Fleming. “I can’t say that I enjoyed it in middle school, unless I was in the middle of the chorus or a group. Now, however, I love it. I think of performing as more of a shared experience, of sharing something with the audience.” At points throughout her illustrious career, Fleming has even struggled with performance anxiety, experiencing physical pain before walking on stage. Fleming’s experience with this visceral type of stage fright—an emotional response that threatened her livelihood—was part of what sent her down a different path in her career, one that builds her legacy far beyond that of an extraordinary performer. “I realized that this stage fright was not a physical ailment, but was something that I was manifesting or creating subconsciously. I discovered that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) was studying the esthetic experiences and the effect on the body and all kinds of healing modalities,” says Fleming. “I found that fascinating.”

From the time newspaper articles were published about the topic, Fleming had been interested in the study of the relationship between music and health. She had met Dr. Francis Collins, then the Director of the NIH, and was curious as to why neuroscientists were studying the impact of music on the brain. “He told me that, unlike any other activity, music appears in every known mapped area of the brain. That’s why we’re going to study it until we can understand more about this relationship,” Fleming attests.

In 2016, Fleming was appointed Artistic Advisor for the Kennedy Center of the Performing Arts, where she led Sound Health, a collaboration between the Kennedy Center and the NIH that brought together world-renowned neuroscientists, musicians and artists to explore the impact of the arts on the mind and body. In 2024, Fleming published an anthology, Music and the Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness and launched the Renee Fleming NeuroArts Investigator Awards, which fund interdisciplinary research projects by early-career scientists and creative artists. 

Fleming’s time in Sarasota was brought full circle with the presentation of the paneled discussion Music and Mind: A Conversation on the Healing Power of the Arts, on January 10 at USF Manatee. Presented by the Sarasota Performing Arts Foundation, in collaboration with the USF Manatee, Music and Mind gave audience members different perspectives on the connections between music, brain health and cognitive development. 

The panelists included Fleming, Dr. Jim Schumacher, neurosurgeon, musician and research associate at Harvard Medical School; Dr. Jennifer Bugos, professor of Music Education at USF and Kevin Spencer, Ph.D, an award-winning performing artist and researcher. “These conversations are fascinating to me, because every single one of them is different,” says Fleming. “In Sarasota, we have a magician, a neurosurgeon and musician and a National Institutes of Health-funded lab at USF presenting their work. Each of these presenters has completely different thoughts on how the arts are essential to us in terms of well-being and overall health.”

Dr. Bugos, who directs the NEA-funded research lab, Cognition and Coordination in Music Across the Lifespan (CALM), spoke on some of the studies she has conducted on musical training, particularly with older adults experiencing the onset of cognitive impairment. “We know that musical training can benefit our brain in many different ways,” says Dr. Bugos. “There have been several cross-sectional associations drawn between music training, verbal fluency and the ability to retain and remember words from a number of different studies. Making music, particularly choral music, can also help us with our verbal flexibility—being able to shift between words—which is critical because a decline in verbal fluency is one of the first symptoms of mild cognitive impairment.” 

Dr. Spencer works in a similar space to Dr. Bugos, however through the use of magic. With a doctorate in Special Education, Dr. Spencer and his wife, Cindy previously were one of the biggest theatrical illusion acts in the United States, before pivoting to working in hospitals and classrooms. Ever since, Dr. Spencer has become the leading authority on the use of magic in therapeutic techniques, working to empower individuals with trauma histories, developmental disabilities and intellectual challenges through simple magic tricks. “Based on a tremendous amount of research, the American Occupational Therapy Association recognizes the use of magic tricks as a legitimate and authentic way of achieving therapeutic goals,” says Dr. Spencer.  “Our role, my role, your role, as therapists, as humans, as educators, as scientists, is not only to help people walk, speak and grip again. It is our goal to help people participate in life again. Magic, in its purest form, is about possibility, and I get to see the magic and possibility of the people that I work with every single week.”

Dr. Schumacher, who practices neuro surgery in Sarasota, spoke on how music activates different areas of the brain and how he works to help repair damaged dopamine circuits, particularly in patients with Parkinson’s disease. Dr. Schumacher has been a trailblazer in cell-based treatment for Parkinson’s, and recently led the first FDA-approved porcine fetal neuronal cell transplantation trials. “The basal ganglia is the part of the brain that coordinates everything,” says Dr. Schumacher. “If you want to move your right hand, the cortex sends a message to the putamen, which gets things going. Music stimulates activity in the basal ganglia, which mediates and motivates movement, timing, rhythmic patterns and pleasure. In Parkinson’s disease, those rhythmic elements can improve gait, balance and coordination. If you give someone that little jolt of dopamine, they can move.”