Renée Fleming and Béla Fleck sang old Appalachian songs at the Tiny Desk

Renée Fleming and Béla Fleck played the Tiny Desk together on 30 July 2026, an opera soprano and a banjo player working through old Appalachian folk songs behind an office desk. NPR's Tom Huizenga, who produced the session, put it down to restlessness in both of them.

Fleck is the obvious case. An 18-time Grammy winner, he is fluent in bluegrass, in newgrass, which he helped define, and in jazz, rock, Indian classical music and a range of other traditions.

Fleming's record of straying is longer than her reputation suggests. One of the most celebrated sopranos of her generation, she has sung the Super Bowl, recorded a moody rock album carrying songs by Peter Gabriel and Tears for Fears, and worked in Broadway and jazz.

The band around them is not filler. Sierra Hull plays mandolin and sings, Mark Schatz plays bass, Jake Stargel plays guitar, and Michael Cleveland is on fiddle. NPR made the case that Cleveland is effectively the third singer here, his playing commenting, harmonising with Hull and Fleming, and stepping out on its own.

Three songs made the set: In the Pines, a pairing of He's Gone Away with Storms Are On the Ocean, and Blackest Crow. They speak of longing, of grief during wartime and of a stubborn hope for better times, and they are a couple of hundred years old.

Other sets from the series in our coverage include Flea with the Honora Band and the War and Treaty with an 11-piece band. More sits on our country hub.