Susan Narucki Soprano

Cuatro Corridos (2016) Bridge 9473

2017 Latin Grammy Nomination

OPERA NEWS - "CRITICS CHOICE"
“WHEN JORGE VOLPI, the librettist of Cuatro Corridos, received a commission from soprano Susan Narucki, an esteemed champion of new music who now teaches at the University of California at San Diego, he knew he wanted to write about human trafficking, a subject that had tormented him for years. Volpi’s libretto consists of one monologue for each of four characters, and he enlisted four different composers to set each. Reflecting the bi-national nature of the project, two of the composers are Mexican, and the other two are from the U.S.

In the first monologue, with music by Hebert Vázquez, we hear from Azucena, a prostitute. The piece starts as a Mexican folk ballad, a simple waltz tune on the guitar, with an overlay of creatively dissonant piano. After two stanzas, however, it turns ominous and distorted. “Off you go, daughter,” Azucena recalls her father saying. The music is still rhythmic, but syncopated, jagged and much more discordant. It’s like warped calypso music, mirroring the horrible life into which the young woman is about to be forced. There’s a return to the more comfortable rhythm and harmony of the beginning, but then it turns slow, shard-like and menacing with rapidly oscillating guitar figures, bowed marimba and insinuating upper register piano figures. After a Bartókian frenzy for piano and percussion, the cheery song accompaniment returns in E major, and it’s devastating.

In the second monologue, with music by Arlene Sierra, we hear from Dalia, a former prostitute who is now a trafficker herself. This movement doesn’t bother, like the first one does, with familiar harmonies and rhythms. Sierra makes calculatedly spare use of the instruments, emphasizing bleakness and pessimism. Dalia reacts with shame and bitterness to what her life has become. The movement dies away with quiet despair.

The third section, by Lei Liang, is the only one in English. Now we hear from a policewoman announcing that the Salazar brothers, ringleaders of the real-life Tenancingo trafficking network, have been arrested (this actually happened in 2001). The first stanza is spoken to the stern rhythmic accompaniment of a drum; the character doesn’t sing until the end of the second stanza, on the phrase “a gang of criminal pimps.” This fragmented and frenzied monologue seems inspired by Chinese opera in its use of percussion and swooping vocals; it gives the policewoman a blazing characterization.

In the final monologue, with music by Hilda Paredes, a woman (Violeta) sings about her friend Iris, who did not survive the ordeal. The musical language is economical, anguished and almost anarchic; then it builds to savage pounding and thrashing, giving the impression that societal norms have disintegrated. The syllabically intoned final line (“I wither from sadness / a flower without dew”) is heartbreaking.

Narucki is a Ninja warrior in her ability to traverse this unrelentingly difficult (both musically and emotionally) hour-long work with such immersive passion and intensity. All four composers make brilliantly imaginative use of the instrumental forces, and the astoundingly virtuosic players—Pablo Gómez on guitar, Aleck Karis on piano and Ayano Kataoka on percussion—are vital to the success of the performance. This piece is bracingly fresh, continuously fascinating and deeply disturbing; somehow, though, you emerge with a sense of optimism that, in the proper hands, ghastly human tragedies can result in great art.”

— Joshua Rosenblum, Opera News. March 26, 2017

Philomela, an opera in one act
(2009) AEON 0986

Anu Komsi, Philomela
Susan Narucki, Procne
Lionel Peintre, Tereseus
Jurjen Hempel, conductor Remix Ensemble

Winner of the l'Orphée d'Or du meilleur enregistrement de musique lyrique du XXIIme siécle de l'Académie du Disque Lyrique 2010 Paris, France.

British composer James Dillon, inspired by the myth written by Ovid and Sophocles, created his first music theater piece with this visionary work. Philomela is one of the major contemporary lyric successes of the last decade, innovative and emotionally piercing.

"Dillon's multi- layered score, full of anguish and struggle, is a harrowing immersion for the listener, but a gripping one, a churning stew that in this fine performance unshirkingly reflects the extreme carnality of the story."
- The Irish Times

"This is James Dillon's first opera, staged in Porto three years ago, and this recording comes from a concert performance at the same time. Dillon casts the tragedy as a tightly woven three-hander, in which different layers of narration and narrative time, as well as what is performed live and what is pre-recorded, combine to create a complex web of connections between past and present. The ensemble writing is tough and sinewy, the vocal lines highly wrought; it's not a comfortable listen, but it is a fascinating one, and the performance, with Anu Komsi as Philomela and Susan Narucki as her sister, is superbly vivid."
- Andrew Clements, The Guardian

(1996) Nonesuch 79367-2
Schoenberg and Asko Ensembles
Netherlands Chamber Choir
Reinbert de Leeuw, conductor
Susan Narucki, soprano
James Doing, tenor

“But the tender side of Andriessen is revealed in the ecstatic Hadewijch, an erotic 13th-century text delivered voluptuously by the soprano Susan Narucki, chomping bass clarinets nipping at her ankles.”
- BBC Music Magazine

Elmer Schönberger (co-author with Andriessen of a book about Stravinsky entitled Apollonian Clockwork) has provided the following succinct synopsis of De Materie: The dramaturgy is that of a tableau vivant, peopled by (mainly Dutch) historical figures; they sing their own historical words thereby continually throwing new light on the subjects. These figures are united by their scientific, religious, artistic, and political idealism, as well as their common willingness to pay the price exacted by their ideals. In part 1, Gorlaeus, the early seventeenth-century philosopher who died at a young age, reinstates the ancient Greek theory of atomism. In part 2, Hadewijch, the thirteenth-century poetess from Brabant, sings the praises of the unio mystica in music rooted in a rational compositional architecture based on the proportions of a cathedral dating from the same century. Both part 2 and part 3 (“Stijl” suggest that despite its title De Materie is mainly concerned with the limits of rationalit. In “Stijl,” whose form and instrumentation were modeled on Mondrian’ Composition with Red, Yellow, and Blue, the emphasis is on the metaphysical inspiration of Neo-Plasticism. Finally part 4 once again takes up the theme of science - time personified by Marie Curie— also the themes of love and death as expressed by the Dutch symbolist poet Willem Kloos.

To Be Sung | a chamber opera
(1997) Radio France MFA 216026

Sarah Leonard, Susan Narucki & Rosemary Hardy, sopranos
Geoffrey Carey, speaker
Ensemble Le Banquet
Olivier Desjours, conductor

To Be Sung, a collaboration between Pascal Dusapin and James Turrell was produced by ATEM (France) in 1993. The original cast (Leonard, Narucki and Hardy) gave over 50 performances of the opera as it toured through Europe during the next four years, with performances in Paris, Nanterre, Orleans, Rouen, Strasbourg, Munich and Berlin.

What Price Confidence? An opera in one act
(2008) Phoenix Edition 130

Susan Narucki, soprano
Ilana Davidson, soprano
Richard Clement, tenor
Christopheren Nomura, baritone
Linda Hall, piano

"Finally Ernst Krenek's delightful comic opera What Price Confidence…is now on a CD complete with Krenek's English libretto.

I never forgot the magical impression this gem-of-an-opera left on all of us fortunate enough to be in attendance. The "question of confidence" (the pivotol element in this opera) is the source for intrigue and drama in regard to the life of two couples in London around 1900..

The four singers are absolutely marvelous. The soprano Ilana Davidson as Gloria, soprano Susan Narucki as Vivian, tenor Richard Clement as Richard and baritone Christopheren Nomura as Edwin, vividly express the emotional responses of the characters which they portray.

This minature opera, which is accompanied by the outstanding Metropolitan Opera pianist, Linda Hall, who illuminates Krenek's delightfully intriguing ideas, is highly engrossing - a lot happens and it's fast-paced from beginning to end.”
- Carolyn Horn

Performed at the Holland Festival, Munich Biennial and Braunschweig Opera Theater, 1993.

ASKO Ensemble, conductor by Stefan Asbury

An opera about the kidnapping of Patty Hearst, featuring Jaco Huipen, Gerrie deVries and Susan Narucki as Patty.

James Primosch Sacred Songs (2014) Bridge Records
Susan Narucki, soprano
William Sharp, baritone
21st Century Consort, Christopher Kendall

"James Primosch's album of vocal works based on religious-themed texts reveals an impressively broad range of approaches to creating sacred music for the twenty-first century. Regardless of style, however, Primrosch's text-setting instincts are seemingly unerring: his vocal lines always convey the words authentically and honestly, while the instrumental accompaniment provides added depth and drama, whether the mood is one of wonder, joy, frustration, reverence, bleakness, or some combination thereof.

Even at his "simplest," Primosch is surprising on the level of detail contained…, "Christus Factus Est" has another clearly tonal melody, but the subtly dissonant leanings of the accompaniment form a painfully apt depiction of Christ on the cross. Narucki's performance of this quietly devastating number is a delicate marvel.

…Another standout is "Deathbeds," the last song of the last cycle (Holy the Firm). Primosch transforms Annie Dillard's poem into something unsparingly grim, even slightly unhinged. Narucki manages to to preserve vocal beauty while giving full dramatic authenticity to Dillard's schizophrenic stream-of-consciousness from the moments right before death. These songs are unfailingly compelling, whether the musical language is complex or seemingly simple. Even listeners with conservative musical tastes will find much to enjoy here. Christopher Kendall skillfully and sensitively leads the 21st Century Consort, which provides superb accompaniment. " - Joshua Rosenblum, Opera News

(2000) Bridge 9097

Romancero
Susan Narucki, soprano Speculum Musicae

"10/10" Highest Rating - Classicstoday.com

“… a well-wrought collection of chamber music, excellently played and lovingly recorded… there is much here to love.

Romancero, Davidovsky's setting of Spanish texts (poet unnamed) is exquisite, and though his writing for the voice leans to the disjunct and fragmented (albeit handled with expert grace by Susan Narucki) it still manages to be passionate and melodic. …This sort of fierce avant-garde fare isn't for everyone, but if it is a passion of yours, or it is something you think you might have open ears for but know not where to start, this is an ideal place to begin… - Daniel Felsenfeld, ClassicsToday. com

Vocal music of Aaron Helgeson (2016) Innova
Susan Narucki, soprano
Talea Ensemble James Baker, conductor

This disc on Innova Records features two exquisitely crafted song cycles of American composer Aaron Helgeson. "Poems of sheer nothingness" a thirty five minute cycle for soprano and ensemble was commissioned by Narucki in 2012 and premiered in New York with the Talea Ensemble in 2014. "Notes on a page of Sappho" (2009) completes the disc.

An excerpt from the program booklet, a conversation between Aaron Helgeson and Susan Narucki:

AH: ... Well, I discovered Carson’s translations in her book If not, winter back in 2003, and wanted to work with them ever since. What’s unusual about it is that it’s not just a translation of the words. It’s a translation of the experience of looking at the fragments themselves — faded text on scraps of papyrus, a few painted phrases among a group of dancing figures on remnants of an urn, isolated examples of the subjunctive uttered by ancient grammarians. The language Carson uses to translate these fragments is both plain and modern...

SN: Carson situates the text on the page in a very particular manner and evokes a world that we can neither see or sense. But we are connected to that world. The experience of being human binds us through time, as if with a thick cord that we cannot cut. Sappho speaks to that so eloquently.

I could never describe Notes on a page as sparse, though! To me, it seems ripe and full — even the silences are lush.But it is full of delicious contradictions.The music is never truly at rest.Amid so much color and texture in the instrumental and vocal writing, I find a sense of urgency, not unlike the experience of trying to crystallize a moment of time — “remembering” a memory, if you will. That speaks to me of Carson’s translation of a translation, an ephemeral construction that nonetheless seems to have inherent power.

AH: Right, we’re never truly in silence. We know that from John Cage, of course, and there are certainly silences in this music that behave like he intended — that reveal sounds which were previously taken for granted (a barely perceptible rumble in the bass drum, a slight pant­ing sound in the flute, a long drawn bow on resonant metal). There are other silences, though, that activate the imagination. Silences where we fill in the gaps left by the music. Carson’s translation leaves us all sorts of gaps, and they allow us to participate spontaneously in the creation of a poetry that is partly Sappho’s and partly our own.I wanted that to be true of the music also.We hear a glimpse of harmony or a familiar sound and it reminds us of something we’ve heard before in other music or even our daily life, and the silence that follows allows us to continue that daydream for a little while.

This all has to do with listening to the music, though. I suppose it’s a very different situa­tion to perform it.

SN: Yes, that’s true. .I wonder how many people are aware of the experience of having their imagination activated, in real time, by sound. Musicians are accustomed to that, of course. We apprehend our location within musical form and structure, but some sounds evoke a world that’s just beyond music. The juxtaposition of the two can be disconcerting, but it can also allow a magical environment to emerge — something unexpected and alive.

(2001) Chandos 9939(5)
String Quartet No. 2, Op. 10 (1907-08)
Schoenberg String Quartet, Susan Narucki, soprano

“.....a striking innovation [of the Second String Quartet, Op. 10] makes it a partical quintet: the use in movements III and IV of a soprano voice, singing poems by Stefan George. The slow movement, Litanei, is a set of variations, with a dense network of themes that interlink with those of other movements. Before it, the scherzo has already provided the most overtly autobiographical moment in all Schoenberg with its citation of the Viennese street song ‘O du lieber Augustin’ and especially the phrase ‘Alles ist hin’ (roughly: ‘its all gone’, “It’s all over’).

Nevertheless, all domestic creses are transcended in the final movement, Entrückung. The ecstatic entry of the voice with the words ‘Ich fühle luft von anderem planeten’ (‘I sense the air of another planet’ - it was an idiosyncrasy of George’s to tend to omit capitalisation in his poetry) became, like the Chamber Symphony’s horn-call, emblematic of the new world of imagination about to be entered. This had as yet little to do with the abandonment of tonality: the first movement had been in F sharp minor and the whole piece ends in a calm and rich F sharp major. Only in the strange quasi-improvisatory opening of the finale, a sort of wasteland of desolation, is tonal feeling temporarily obscured.”
- from liner notes by Hugh Wood

(1997) New World 80527
Vocalissimus
MOSAIC Ensemble
Martin Goldray, conductor
Susan Narucki, soprano

“The performances are breathtaking...I must recognize Susan Narucki for exceptional tone, intonation and clarity...this is a release to savor.” - Fanfare

(2007) Albany Troy 921
Susan Narucki, soprano
Empyrean Ensemble

Ross Bauer attended New England Conservatory and Brandeis, studying with John Heiss, Martin Boykan, Arthur Berger and Luciano Berio. His honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, two Fromm Foundation commissions and a Koussevitzky commission. Bauer is a master composer of deeply expressive, highly charged music in a wide variety of genres. Throughout his works, whether they are orchestral, concerti with orchestra or chamber ensemble, or vocal or chamber music, his sense of form and instrumental writing is exquisitely idiomatic and his orchestration crystal clear and dazzling in its color. His vocal writing is particularly beautiful. He pays close attention to the meaning and sound of the texts that he sets, as well as to the formal implications of those texts. This CD, featuring music written in the 1990's for voice with instruments and for instruments alone, makes an excellent introduction to Ross Bauer's work, which traverses a wide range from tender lyricism to tremendous ferocity.

Music of Claude Vivier (1996) Phillips 454 231-2

Lonely Child
Bouchara
Prologue a un Marco Polo

Susan Narucki, soprano
Reinbert de Leeuw, conductor
Schoenberg and Asko Ensembles

“The Asko and Schoenberg Ensembles are both first rate-groups. Their conductor, Reinbert de Leeuw, has understood the essence of Vivier’s music and has discovered, with his performers, an impressive palette of instrumental colors. Soprano Susan Narucki is perfect. Her voice melts marvelously into the ensemble, just as the composer intended. I had never heard this music played so well. I am convinced that this disc will delight anyone who is really interested in the music of our time - it is music that touches, right away. Berhind it, one can feel a true human being, sensitive and warm.”
- Jean-Michel Boulay, Sonances/The New Music Site

“...(This) anthology of (Vivier’s) last works on Phillips is a striking memorial...Reinbert de Leeuw draws alternatively explosive and luminous playing from the Asko and Schoenberg Ensembles. Susan Narucki’s soprano luxuriates in an uncommonly grateful vocal line.”
- Alex Ross, The New Yorker

“I’m not the one writing my music,” Claude Vivier once said. “Perhaps it’s written by the flowers I smelled, a gesture I made, people I saw, the stars, you never know.” Conversely, one could also say that Vivier’s works furnish a description of the man himself; the same personal fears and desires return continually to form a “theme”. The composer looks on his music as a lengthy journey through what he calls “les univers intèrieurs.” ...
He developed a highly personal musical style, characterized by the use of the language he created, peppered with all kinds of vocal effects and strong, prominent melodies. “
- from the notes by Jaco Mjnheer

George Crumb |Starchild (2000) Bridge 9095

Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus
Thomas Conlin, conductor
Joseph Alessi, trombone
Susan Narucki, soprano

Winner of 2000 Grammy Award

“The long-awaited premiere recording of a major work by one of our greatest living composers. The performances are perfect and the recording is of demonstration standard."
- Classical Pulse

Bridge celebrates George Crumb's 70th birthday with a cross-section of his music, including youthful songs and a delightfully humorous depiction of the dogs in his life for David Starobin's expressive guitar and Crumb's percussion accompaniment. The centerpiece though, is the large-scale Star-Child, a 1977 commission from Pierre Boulez and the New York Philharmonic. Massive in ambition and in its expansive aural vistas, Crumb says it traces a "progression from darkness (despair) to light (or joy and spiritual realization)." Have no fears of New Age doodling; Crumb's music is tough, beginning with a quiet, dark slow movement that becomes an expressive duet for soprano, and a trombone that comments on the "Libera me" text with stentorian eruptions, muted sighs, and spoken parody of the soprano line. The central movement depicts the Apocalypse; the closing movement brings peace via luminous strings surrounded by a halo of handbells and a male chorus's hushed prayer of deliverance. An important work; an important disc.
- Dan Davis

Mario Davidovsky (2002) Bridge 9112

Shulamit's Dream
Shir ha-shirim
Biblical Songs

Susan Narucki, Soprano
Riverside Symphony
George Rothman, conductor
Parnassus Anthony Korf, conductor

“Within a minute of the opening poem of Shulamit’s Dream I was quite swept away. Soprano Susan Narucki is brilliant throughout....distinguished by virtuosity inspired by relentless dedication.”
- Fanfare

“Bridge's second installment of Mario Davidovsky's seldom-recorded music neatly sums up the composer's manifold influences in vocal selections based on the ancient Hebrew poetry "Song of Songs". At various points we hear threads of the composer's lifelong interest in the romanticism of Berg, the polyphonic style of Renaissance music, and the re-creation of his groundbreaking work in the electronic medium through "analog" instruments. Soprano Susan Narucki headlines all three works and easily proves herself the heiress of Jan de Gaetani and Cathy Berberian in her ability to negotiate the perilous leaps, abrupt dynamic contrasts, and myriad nuanced colorations required in this difficult but lyrical music.

Shulamit's Dream (1993) is the largest scale work of the program's three, requiring a full orchestra but rarely utilizing it all at once. The opening measures are reminiscent of Berg, featuring more sumptuous, shimmering orchestral writing and harmonic complexity than the other works, which display leaner, pointillistic textures. If anything, the vocal writing calls to mind Lulu's Lied. The sudden changes in texture and dynamics that proliferate both in this and the other pieces show how Davidovsky (aided by the virtuosic proficiency of today's performers) was able to embody his trademark electronically-induced soundscape (mainly found in his series of Synchronisms) in the orchestral timbre.

The centerpiece of this disc, the 27-minute quasi-cantata Shir ha-Shirim (1975), juxtaposes the mysterious vocal sonority typical of Renaissance polyphony (via two tenors singing in falsetto, like countertenors) with spiky and resonant intonations from strings and piano, ostensibly evoking the eerie electronic effects of Davidovsky's past works. Evidently to conjure up an arid and harsh desert landscape, the piano accompanies the singers with subito attacks, while the string contributions are reduced to pizzicato and col legno tricks. With the winds mostly adding to the exotic Middle Eastern twang, the small instrumental complement cleverly modulates, amplifies, and shades the vocal lines. The final mini-song cycle, Biblical Songs (1990), retains the subject matter of the other pieces but is a touch more intimate. Instrumental economy belies the power behind the music and words (as in the climactic section that calls for God's vengeance against the Babylonian invaders, where the language switches suddenly from English to Hebrew).

The twin ensembles, Parnassus and Riverside Symphony, fixtures of the New York musical scene, perform these works with assurance. The sound is excellent, and once again, Narucki is exemplary throughout.”
- Michael Liebowitz, Classicstoday.com

(2000) Aspen Music Festival

"Salome" from Counterpoise
Aspen Festival Orchestra
David Zinman, conductor
Susan Narucki, soprano

An historic compilation commemorating the first 50 years of the Aspen Music Festival and School.

Lisa Bielawa (2010) Chance Encounter|Orange Mountain Music omm7004

Susan Narucki, soprano
The Knights

Co-conceived by Lisa Bielawa and Susan Narucki, Chance Encounter brings modern art music to audiences outside traditional concert hall settings. Since its premiere in 2007 at Seward Park in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the thirty-five minute work, which earned grants from Creative Capital has been performed at Yale University, the Whitney Museum of Art, in Rome, Italy, at the grand opening of the MAXXI Museum and at the Venice Biennale.

Read the review in Gramophone here

David Del Tredici
(1990) New World 80390

Members of the New York Philharmonic
Zubin Mehta, conductor
Susan Narucki, soprano
Claire Bloom, narrator

Haddock’s Eyes was commissioned by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, which presented the premiere on May 2, 1986 in New York’s Alice Tully Hall. It is set to a portion of Chapter VIII of Through the Looking Glass, in which the White Knight rescues Alice from the Red Knight, who had made her his prisoner. In true Victorian fashion - a bow to the Savoy Operas?- Del Tredici has called the “White Knight’s Song (1)” a ‘patter’ song, the words spilling out with increasing frenzy as the blissfully confused Knight careens from one hilariously cracked image to another.”

The musical setting is “funny, brusque and breathless- a kind of infernal perpetual mobile machine ever in danger of flying apart,” Del Tredici continues. “Only at the penultimate line, ‘That summer evening long ago’, does the music mellow. Indeed...this line becomes a crucial motif, bearing the listener again and again to the rapturous, bittersweet depths of Carrollian sentiment for child friends now grown, gone....”

However, the centerpiece of the work is not by Carroll but by one of his contemporaries, the poet Thomas Moore - a yearning, idyllic setting of “My Heart and Lute”, which Del Tredici designates as an aria. It is followed, in turn by a furious instrumental interlude; a return to the “White Knight’s Song”; and a final “Farewell” which makes effective, intertwining use of both the knight’s song and the aria.

Del Tredici has said that a composer’s primary objective in composing is to translate his personality into music. “I’ve been told that there is something childlike in my character. If that is true, then perhaps the compositions here [Steps and Haddock’s Eyes] can be said to represent two distinct sides of that child - something charming, something monstrous.”
- Tim Page

“Compassion” a tribute to Yehudi Menuhin

John Tavener
(2001) Angel EMI 7243 5 57179 2 4

Susan Narucki, soprano
Ulf Hoelscher, violin
Czech Philharmonic Orchestra
Lukas Foss conductor

Song of the Angel is based on the traditional concept of the only word sung by angels - “Hallelujah.” Since angels are sexless, the music was conceived without human emotion. So it is the self rather than myself which sings. In the words of Dr. Anada Coomaraswamy, one of the traditionalist writers on art in the 20th century “like all music of the East it should reveal tranquility and eternal, angelic, ecstatic breath which liberates and humanizes”.
- John Tavener

Children of Men | Sound|track John Tavener -
(2006) Varese Sarabande 302 066 769 2

Susan Narucki, soprano
Ulf Hoelscher, violin
Czech Philharmonic Orchestra
Lukas Foss, conductor

Song of the Angel is based on the traditional concept of the only word sung by angels - “Hallelujah.” Since angels are sexless, the music was conceived without human emotion. So it is the self rather than myself which sings. In the words of Dr. Anada Coomaraswamy, one of the traditionalist writers on art in the 20th century “like all music of the East it should reveal tranquility and eternal, angelic, ecstatic breath which liberates and humanizes”.
- John Tavener

Richard Einhorn
(1995) SONY Classical SK62006

Anonymous 4
Susan Narucki, soprano
Netherlands Radio Orchestra and Chorus
Steven Mercurio, conductor

Voices of Light, inspired by the classic French silent film "The Passion of Joan of Arc," works as a cinematic accompaniment, but it's not movie music. Influenced by minimalism and the likes of Gorecki and Part, Einhorn's music is tonal and accessible. The texts--in Latin and antique French--are from the Bible, and from writings by (mostly) medieval women, including Joan of Arc herself. Joan is represented by the reliably intelligent and well-tuned Anonymous 4 (Ruth Cunningham, Marsha Genensky, Susan Hellauer and Johanna Rose); soprano Susan Narucki sings her often high-flying lines with beauty and clarity.
- Sarah Bryan Miller

The Light That Is Felt | Songs of Charles Ives
New World Records 80680-2 (2008)

Susan Narucki, soprano Donald Berman, piano

Editor's Choice - BBC Music Magazine, - Highest rating: 5 Stars

"...the disc represents a fertile meeting of minds belonging to two eloquent champions of 20th century American music...So often Ives demands an unselfconscious simplicity not all singers can muster. Susan Narucki knows how not to over-gild - never rending maudlin the richthread of nocturne and remembrance which runs through the artfully-plotted programme. The oppressed fragility of "Like a Sick Eagle" is something special on a very special disc indeed."
Paul Riley - BBC Music Magazine

"There's probably no finer introduction to Ives' songs, or indeed his output as a whole".
Andy Hamilton - Wire

"The collaboration of the splendid Susan Narucki, a soprano of round and luminous timbre and her conscientious accompanist Donald Berman, shows limitless musicality."
Diverdi - Elisa Rapado

"Ne possiamo ascoltare una scelta non cosi minima nella magnifica interpretazione della soprano Susan Narucki, accompangnata da Donald Berman."
Piercarlo Poggio - BLOW UP (Italy)

"As interesting as intense is this selection of Charles Ives' songs extracted from the compilation '114 Songs' published by the same composer in 1922... The songs on this disc belong to every era, since his youth in Yale until the end of his inspiration in 1927, and address different themes: bucolic, urban, and sentimental. However, they all share the same spirit: the atonality offers an sense of mystery that mixes with some typical American melodies, giving a result of great modernity. The tandem formed by Susan Narucki and Donald Berman is fully involved in the project, with the security of someone who know what he is doing and with a great synthesis between them. The result: a good mixture of brief songs of intense music and words as evocative as the photography that illustrates the CD."
Opera Actual (Spain)

"Under the Influence, or Providing It" - The New York Times, Jan 16, 2009

International Record Review - February 2009

The Light That is Felt: Songs of Charles Ives reflects Susan Narucki and Donald Berman’s lifelong interest in the music of Charles Ives. The twenty-seven songs on this disc range from some of Ives’ best known (Songs My Mother Taught Me, The Housatonic at Stockbridge) to the lesser known settings of Italian poets (August, September, December) and also includes General William Booth Enters Into Heaven. The performances were informed by the critical edition of Ives Songs by the late Wiley Hitchcock and the project was supported by grants from the Aaron Copland Fund For Recorded Music and The Ives Society.

Aaron Jay Kernis
(2007) Koch 7667

Susan Narucki, soprano
Donald Berman, piano
Aaron Jay Kernis, conductor

“Soprano Susan Narucki, pianist Donald Berman and the other musicians on this recording offer satisfying accounts of this difficult, serious but wonderfully expressive music......Narucki has the smarts and complete investment they require. There seem to be no heights she is unafraid to scale; her ability to create line over the angular melodies is enviable She also has compelling richness to her voice that gives her access to plenty of colors…. these songs which invite performers to strut their personality -- a task Narucki and Berman can do handsomely." - Opera News

"Kernis is an extraordinary melodist and a master of lush, delicately Romantic harmonies, and when sets out to seduce a listener, there's no resisting him - especially with soprano Susan Narucki's lustrous tones to seal the deal. Simple Songs," which Narucki introduced in San Francisco in 1999, remains a beautiful tour de force, with its delicate instrumental writing and heart-stopping Mahlerian finale." - San Francisco Chronicle

With Donald Berman, pianist.

Gramophone An extensive and enjoyable collection of American music nurtured in Rome. 2009

This four disc collection on Bridge Records contains works by thirty-seven composers who composed these pieces while in residence at the American Academy in Rome. The earliest work dates from 1920, the most recent from 2003. Composers include the well known: Samuel Barber, Elliott Carter, and Roger Sessions; the largely forgotten: Charles Naginski, Alexander Lang Steinert, Walter Helfer; and many of today's most active voices: Robert Beaser, David Rakowski, Aaron Jay Kernis, Paul Moravec, Stephen Hartke and David Lang. Curated by Donald Berman, the disc features  performances by many of today's leading performers of contemporary music, including  Richard Stoltzman, Yehudi Wyner, Susan Narucki, Tony Arnold, Fred Sherry, Daniel Druckman, and Curtis Macomber.

(2005) New World Records 80629-2
Four songs of Carl Ruggles

Susan Narucki, soprano
Donald Berman, piano

"Long before the days when assistant professors wrote tone rows for tenure, American modernism was something worth fighting for. And perhaps no one fought harder than Carl Ruggles (1876-1971), a hardscrabble New England eccentric (and friend of Charles Ives) whose compositional technique was so rudimentary that a lifetime of labor resulted in only twelve published works, just enough for a single concert.

For Ruggles lovers, that has never been enough, and the pianist Donald Berman has slaked their thirst with "The Uncovered Ruggles" (New World Records), premiere recordings of sketches painstakingly realized by Berman's teacher John Kirkpatrick (such as a surprisingly winsome "Valse Lente") as well as persuasive performances of familiar works (like the "Evocations," for piano, or the song "Toys," lovingly rendered by the soprano Susan Narucki). Berman is an artist both forceful and discreet: he easily provides the big tone that Ruggles's arching lines of dissonant counterpoint require, yet he is also sensitive to the poignantly timeless quality that these strange works have."
- Russell Platt, The New Yorker

Robert Heppener
(1996) Donemus/CV 48

Susan Narucki, soprano
Sepp Grotenhuis, piano

In their lyrical passion, the poems in this song cycle - taken from Pound’s Ripostes - point far ahead of their time (1912) to ours: a time of great crowding, overpopulation and stress. A time in which one not only desires with a certain sense of nostalgia, but also, with a certain sense of rebelliousness, yearns for space, rest and solitude. Heppener’s music is marked by keen expressivity and expansiveness in the vocal line, and a great sense of spaciousness.

Charles Ives
(2001) Decca 466 841-2

Susan Narucki, soprano
Sanford Sylvan, baritone
Alan Feinberg, piano
Richard Bernas, conductor
Music Projects/London

Artistic Quality 10 / Sound Quality 10 - Classics Today.com

“As if we need any more evidence of Charles Ives' unconventional ideas and composing techniques, this excellent recording reminds us that for him, a song was less a form and more a wide-open vehicle for free expression--whether spontaneous, undeveloped personal thoughts or settings of the most refined poetic utterances. But no matter how you analyze or try to define Ives' motives and methods, you have to be impressed by his way with a text--from his own (The See'r; The New River; Remembrance) to those of revered writers such as Lord Byron (who wrote the poem from which the disc's title is taken), John Keats, Rudyard Kipling, John Milton, William Wordsworth, or Robert Underwood Johnson. As conductor Richard Bernas explains, "Ives' songs are an essential key to his musical imagination, not just in vocal but in the most extravagant instrumental terms, when they are transformed into the Sets for Orchestra." And therein lies the genius of this recording: to place the songs alongside the orchestral versions that often preceded them. Many listeners will not be aware that Ives wrote a number of instrumental works that he later set to texts; he also turned original songs into instrumental pieces. Both types are represented here and it's fascinating to compare the related compositions that also stand perfectly well on their own.

The orchestral sets are expertly performed by Bernas and his Music Projects/London ensemble, and likewise, the vocal versions are given high-class attention by soprano Susan Narucki and baritone Sanford Sylvan, with Alan Feinberg at the piano. We can only marvel at (and reach for the repeat button following) a masterpiece such as the song The Last Reader, an Oliver Wendell Holmes text set with uncommon sensitivity and evocative piano colors and shadings. And what can you say about Charlie Rutlage, a two and one half minute dramatic tour de force about "another good cowpuncher" who's "gone to meet his fate"--except that it's perfect, and not a second too long or too short? Similarly, the disc's final song, a beautiful yet almost painfully brief "remembrance" of the composer's father (with a text by Ives himself), leaves you wanting more but realizing that in 53 seconds Ives has said all that needs be said. This is a very special and memorable recording that deserves priority not only on listeners' purchase lists but also among citations for discs of the year. The sound is vibrant, detailed, and brightly-colored, suitably intimate for the songs and appropriately full-bodied and spacious for the orchestral pieces.”
- David Vernier, Classics Today.com

Beth Wiemann
(2004) Albany Troy 675

Susan Narucki, soprano
Christopher Oldfather, piano
Beth Wiemann, clarinet

“Strong singing is provided by soprano Susan Narucki, with attractively full sound, felicitous execution and solid diction.”
- New Music Connoisseur

Beth Wiemann was raised in Burlington, Vermont and studied composition and clarinet at Oberlin and Princeton University. She teaches composition and clarinet at the University of Maine, and splits her time between Maine and Massachusetts, where her husband, composer David Rakowski, teaches at Brandeis University.

On this compilation of works for voice, clarinet, piano and electronics, Beth Wiemann brings together in compelling fashion three important facets of her life as a composer: a fascination with setting words, broad experience as an active performer of her own music and that of her colleagues, and an ongoing interest in the incorporation into her work of electronic and digital technology. Wiemann has been fascinated for years with the already heightened speech of poetry and its translation into the still more heightened speech of song. Among her earliest musical memories is that of hearing original cast recordings of Broadway musicals played in her home as a child. Unlike a number of composers of her generation, the Broadway idiom has exerted a far greater influence on her than later pop and rock styles, though not in an immediately obvious way. While genuinely admiring the craftsmanship of such composers for the stage as Gershwin, Kern, Porter, Rodgers, Bernstein and Sondheim, however, she has not sought to introduce superficial characteristics of their styles into her music in any literal sense. Instead, she has cultivated a harmonically subtle, more chromatic and less obviously tonally grounded pitch language. In keeping with that tendency, she is often drawn to poetry that is intimate and conversational in tone or concerned with aspects of everyday life.

In travels to artists' colonies over the years she has had the good fortune to meet and befriend a number of poets, who often provide her with new material for musical setting. Most of this disc consists of selections from Weimann's collection Simple Songs, a project she began in 1990. . Over time, Wiemann added other songs to the collection as she came across poetry that interested her. The latest song from the collection that appears on this disc is "Seamstress" composed in 2001.