121 Quotes by Renee Fleming

Certainly, jazz has become more of a niche, which is surprising, because it's our music. It's the national music of America.

When a human being without amplification makes a sound that is high and loud, it is almost unworldly.

I’m lucky – I can do two things at once.

I don’t like to sing loud.

Being steeped in the process of learning and exploring keeps me from becoming too nervous. Partly it’s about not getting bored.

When I sing, the sound is a totally different range, color, all of it. It’s all about the breath. You take in a breath and you make a sound.

I was constantly being pushed toward a European ideal of what it means to be a classical or opera singer, let’s say in the Renata Tebaldi mode. I reject that.

Someone once said that there are probably seven naturally good singing days in a year-and those are days you won’t be booked. What we must learn is how to sing through all the other days.

If I have to hold a note for a long time, I imagine it as moving and spinning, for the note has to have life. In a way, a singer actually refreshes a note with every beat that it’s held.