2024 Schedule at a glance

Renée Fleming

Renée Fleming is one of the most highly acclaimed singers of our time, performing on the stages of the world’s greatest opera houses and concert halls. Honored with the US National Medal of Arts, the 2023 Kennedy Center Honor, and five Grammy® awards, she has sung at momentous occasions from the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony to the Super Bowl. She is currently starring in The Hours at the Metropolitan Opera and is touring her recital program Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene, inspired by her Grammy-winning album of the same name and with an original film by the National Geographic Society.

In recent years, Fleming has become a prominent advocate for research at the intersection of arts, health, and neuroscience, and she has been named a Goodwill Ambassador for Arts and Health by the World Health Organization. As Artistic Advisor to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, she launched the first ongoing collaboration between America’s national cultural center and its largest health research institute, the National Institutes of Health. As Co-Chair of the NeuroArts Blueprint, she created the Renée Fleming Neuroarts Investigator Awards to support early-career arts and health researchers.

Fleming’s many awards include the Annenberg Award for Diplomacy through the Arts from the Foundation for Art and Preservation in Embassies, Research!America’s Rosenfeld Award for Impact on Public Opinion, the Fulbright Lifetime Achievement Medal, the World Economic Forum’s Crystal Award, Germany’s Cross of the Order of Merit, and France’s Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur. Fleming’s new anthology, Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness, is now available from Viking Penguin Random House. www.reneefleming.com

Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson

For more than 25 years, Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson’s work has focused on understanding and elevating arts, culture, and design as critical elements of healthy communities. Her work blends social science and arts- and humanities-based approaches to comprehensive community revitalization, systems change, the dynamics of race and ethnicity, and the roles of arts and culture in communities. After confirmation by the U.S. Senate in December 2021, Dr. Jackson became the 13th chair of the National Endowment for the Arts in January 2022. With this historic appointment, Dr. Jackson is the first African American and the first Mexican American woman to serve as chair of the NEA.

Terri Lee Freeman

Terri Lee Freeman was named President of The Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture (The Lewis Museum) in June 2023 after having served as its Executive Director since February 2021. Freeman is responsible for providing strategic leadership in furthering the museum’s mission as an educational and cultural institution. To that end, she has worked with staff and board to develop a five-year strategic plan that culminates in a planned renovation of The Lewis Museum’s permanent history exhibition, a growth in visitors, membership, funding support and community outreach. Freeman seeks to connect history to current events and expand the museum’s connection to the very rich and vibrant communities that make up the state of Maryland. Prior to joining The Lewis Museum, Freeman served as President of the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee for six years. During her tenure, Freeman broadened the Museum’s reputation as the new public square.

Susan Magsamen

Susan Magsamen is the founder and executive director of the International Arts + Mind Lab (IAM Lab), Center for Applied Neuroaesthetics, a pioneering initiative from the Pedersen Brain Science Institute at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Her body of work lies at the intersection of brain sciences and the arts—and how our unique response to aesthetic experiences can amplify human potential. Magsamen is the author of the Impact Thinking model, an evidence-based research approach to accelerate how we use the arts to solve problems in health, well-being, and learning. In addition to her role at IAM Lab, she is an assistant professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins and serves as co-director of the NeuroArts Blueprint project in partnership with the Aspen Institute. Prior to founding IAM Lab, Magsamen worked in both the private and public sector, developing social impact programs and products addressing all stages of life—from early childhood to the senior years. Magsamen created Curiosityville, an online personalized learning world, acquired by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2014 and Curiosity Kits, a hands-on multi-sensory company, acquired by Torstar in 1995. An award-winning author, Magsamen has published eight books including The Classic Treasury of Childhood Wonder, The 10 Best of Everything Families, and Family Stories. Susan’s newest book, a New York Times Bestseller, is titled Your Brain On Art: How the Arts Transform Us, written with Ivy Ross, Vice President of Google Hardware.