Education Quote by Renee Fleming

Renee Fleming is smuggling a democratic lesson into a world that fetishizes the master teacher. The opening line punctures a familiar fantasy in classical music: that somewhere there is one guru with the perfect method, the “right” technique, the single key that unlocks your voice. By stating the limitation so plainly, she quietly reassigns responsibility. If no teacher can be all things, the singer has to become their own curator, strategist, and quality-control department.

“You have to gain information from whatever sources you can” reads like practical career advice, but the subtext is survival. Vocal pedagogy is notoriously fragmented: schools of thought compete, bodies vary wildly, and what “works” can depend on repertoire, language, age, and physiology. Fleming’s phrasing validates a kind of artistic omnivory that some conservatory cultures treat as disloyalty. Learn from coaches, conductors, recordings, peers, even genres outside the classical lane. Take what’s useful, discard what isn’t, keep moving.

Then she lands on the deceptively simple command: “You have to listen.” Not just to teachers, but to your instrument, your fatigue, your breath, the room, the ensemble, the audience’s attention. It’s also a corrective to ego and to the modern impulse to brand certainty. Listening is the craft behind adaptability, and adaptability is the real technique.

Coming from Fleming - a star who navigated multiple styles and a long, high-stakes career - the line doubles as permission: stop waiting to be “fixed” by an authority figure. Build your own literacy, and let listening be the method that outlasts any method.