World famous soprano Renee Fleming is better known for her peerless voice than her work as a book editor. But her new book is personal. It’s a collection about the connection between the arts and healing.
She said it all started when she sought medical help for physical pain she was experiencing in response to performance pressure.
“I really started to become fascinated by the science. And the fact that scientists were even looking at this, and they have now funded $40 million of just music research. And now they've understood that there are incredible benefits to having the arts embedded in health care,” Fleming said.
Fleming curated the book, “Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness,” which came out this spring.
“Our engagement with the arts predates even speech in human beings," Fleming said.
And, we’re wired for it. In fact, there’s no part of the brain that music doesn’t touch.
“Dan Levitan and his neuroanatomy chapter tells us that music is in every known mapped area of the brain,” Fleming said. Levitan is a neuroscientist, cognitive psychologist and musician.
“If we're engaging with music and, say, playing an instrument, it utilizes almost all of our senses. Now, let's actually believe that there are at least 20 senses and not five. So, science is learning a lot about who we are in terms of our response and engagement with aesthetics.”
She said the book “draws attention to something we take for granted” at a time when there are profound social needs.
“Because medicine treats disease. It doesn’t treat people … and adding arts to creative aging or to Alzheimer’s patients or to childhood development can really change the landscape,” Fleming said.
She points to the case of singer Rosanne Cash, whose medical challenges are covered in the book.
“I always talk about Roseanne Cash’s chapter because it's just harrowing what she went through to be diagnosed with a very rare brain disorder (Chiari I malformation)," Fleming said.
"But it took her 10 years to get a proper diagnosis; they kept saying, 'Oh well, you must be having hormone issues.'
"And she was in excruciating pain.”
There are chapters on “Music as Therapy,” and “Creative Learning,” among several others.
“I would say that the takeaway is surprise, that you can actually make a huge improvement in someone with cardiovascular failure just by singing twice a week; or if you've had stroke, if you join a choir, there are tremendous benefits,” Fleming said.
A stroke can trigger aphasia. That interferes with someone’s ability to create or understand language.
“And not enough people know this. So, for instance, you could potentially connect with a music therapist if your loved one had a stroke. If you do it very quickly, you might just get them speaking again immediately,” Fleming said.
Fleming also said the focus by schools on academics along with the budget squeeze in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic has left arts education in the lurch.
She said that’s detrimental for students in more ways than one.
"But taking the arts out of schools kind of gives them less of a reason to come," Fleming said. "And there's a massive truancy problem in the country, urban areas; just young people are not going back to school. And you've got to give them things that they can engage with, that gives them a creative outlet and helps them with identity."
These days, Fleming isn’t performing as much as she used to, but she said will be singing in Lakeland and Naples in January next year.
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