A Dodd Auditorium audience showed world-renowned soprano Renee Fleming the love in September as she opened the UMW Philharmonic Orchestra’s 2017-18 Celebrity Series.
Fleming, a National Medal of the Arts recipient, said she was excited to make her “Fredericksburg debut,” offering works by European composers followed by Broadway favorites. She answered insistent standing ovations with three very different encores: Bjork’s Virus, Lerner and Loewe’s I Could Have Danced All Night, and finally Puccini’s moving O mio babbino caro.
While on campus, she and National Institutes of Health neuroscientist and engineer David Jangraw gave a talk about music and the mind, discussing the therapeutic effects of music on the brain. Fleming, a four-time Grammy winner, recently retired from the Metropolitan Opera.
Upcoming:
The Holiday Pops Concert on Friday, Dec. 8, with the Irish Tenors – Finbar Wright, Anthony Kearns, and Ronan Tynan – who will perform songs from their best-selling album We Three Kings.
The Library of Congress Project Concert with legendary trumpet player Arturo Sandoval on Saturday, March 17, with works from Director Kevin Bartram’s national research project and the suite from Hamilton.
The season finale Celebrity Series With Henry Winkler narrating Sergei Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf on Friday, April 27, 2018. Winkler played the Fonz alongside Ron Howard in the 1970s TV sitcom Happy Days. Tickets for the late-April performance go on sale March 26, 2018.
For tickets or information call 540-654-1324 or visit umwphilharmonic.com.