The Lied Center of Kansas has named Renée Fleming, international opera sensation, and Mike Jones, Lawrence High School band director, as the 2025–26 season’s IMPACT Awards recipients. Each year, the Lied Center recognizes one artist or group from its current season for distinguished service to the performing arts, and one USD 497 educator for distinguished service to arts education.
The IMPACT Awards will be presented at Renée Fleming’s “Music and Mind, A Panel Discussion” event at the Lied Center on April 16, 7:30 p.m. The panel event is free and open to the public. The following evening, April 17 at 7:30 p.m., Fleming will perform her concert “Voice of Nature: the Anthropocene” at the Lied Center (ticketed event). Derek Kwan, Lied Center executive director, said of the recipients, “We are so honored to recognize Renée Fleming, an artist of unparalleled brilliance, who is equally passionate about harnessing the arts for health and wellness. Mike Jones has instilled a love for the arts in thousands of students over his decades of teaching band at Lawrence High School.”
Renée Fleming is internationally celebrated for her vocal and dramatic artistry, as well as her dedicated advocacy for the powerful impacts of the creative arts in health. A 2023 Kennedy Center Honoree, winner of five Grammy Awards and the U.S. National Medal of Arts, she has sung for momentous occasions from the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony to the Diamond Jubilee for Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace to the Super Bowl. In 2023, the World Health Organization appointed her as Goodwill Ambassador for Arts and Health. Her latest recital and concert program, “Voice of Nature: the Anthropocene,” inspired by her 2023 Grammy-winning album, includes an original film created by the National Geographic Society to reflect the musical selections. Fleming’s anthology “Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness” was published in 2024. A prominent advocate for research at the intersection of arts, health and neuroscience, she created a live program called “Music and Mind,” which she has presented in more than 70 cities around the world. The Renée Fleming NeuroArts Investigator Awards, her initiative with the Aspen Institute and the NeuroArts Blueprint at Johns Hopkins University, funds interdisciplinary research projects by early career scientists in collaboration with creative artists.
Mike Jones, longtime band director at Lawrence High School, has been recognized by peers and organizations for teaching excellence. In 2024, the Northeast Kansas Music Educators Association honored Jones with its Outstanding Band Director Award and nominated him for the state KMEA Outstanding Music Educator Award. He received a Phoenix Award for Musical Arts Educator in 2023. Jones has directed bands at LHS since 2001.
This year’s winners will be added to the list of esteemed recipients, such as the Paul Taylor Dance Company, Terence Blanchard, the Dancing Wheels Company, Emmet Cohen, Samuel Ramey, Joshua Bell, Black Violin and Wynton Marsalis; and USD 497 educators Trish Averill Neuteboom, Melissa Smith, Lysette DeBoard, Rachel Downs-Doubrava, Peter Gipson, Johannah Cox, Deborah Woodall Routledge, Sara Bonner, Dani Lotton-Barker and Lois Orth-Lopes.
To learn more about the Lied Center’s IMPACT Awards and the selection process, visit lied.ku.edu/welcome.
Tickets for Renée Fleming’s “Voice of Nature: the Anthropocene” concert on April 17 at 7:30 p.m. can be purchased at lied.ku.edu or the Lied Center Ticket Office.