Susan Narucki

Grammy award winning soprano Susan Narucki has earned international acclaim as a singer of luminous tone, superb musicianship and extraordinary expressivity. One of today's outstanding interpreters of contemporary music, she has presented over one hundred world premieres in opera, concert and recording, and has enjoyed close collaborations with many of the world's leading composers.

Ms. Narucki has appeared as a soloist with the Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, MET Chamber Ensemble, on the Great Performers Series at Lincoln Center, and at Carnegie Hall. and has worked with numerous conductors, including James Levine, Pierre Boulez, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Michael Tilson Thomas, Oliver Knussen, Reinbert de Leeuw, Herbert Blomstedt, and and Kent Nagano. She has appeared at major European festivals in Berlin, Brussels, Paris, Warsaw, Torino, London, Vienna, Lisbon, Munich and Amsterdam, at the Aspen and Ojai Festivals and at the Cabrillo Festival of New American Music with conductor Marin Alsop.

The soprano has been a featured soloist with contemporary music ensembles across the globe, including the Asko/Schoenberg, London Sinfonietta, Ensemble Modern, Nieuw Ensemble, ELISION, SMCQ, Remix, ICE, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Speculum Musicae, NYNME , Network for New Music and Collage. She has been a frequent guest on the Los Angeles Philharmonic's Green Umbrella Series and of the Making Music Series at Carnegie Hall, on which she presented Kurtag's monumental cycle, Kafka Fragments with violinist Daniel Phillips, on a concert honoring the composer.

Ms. Narucki made her Netherlands Opera debut creating the role of Catherina Bolnes in Louis Andriessen's Writing to Vermeer, and traveled with the production to the Adelaide and Lincoln Center Festivals. She was also featured in the world premiere of Claude Vivier's Rèves d'un Marco Polo, directed by Pierre Audi. Of her performance, Vrij Nederland wrote "...one name we will never forget: Susan Narucki, the American soprano, who gave us all goosebumps and moved us to tears." The Netherlands Opera production was filmed for European broadcast and Opus Arte DVD. With T&M of Paris, Ms. Narucki gave the premiere of To Be Sung (the collaboration of composer Pascal Dusapin and American artist James Turrell) and travelled with the work for over fifty performances throughout Europe. Her recent portrayal of "Mama" in Elliott Carter's What Next?, directed by Christopher Alden, was praised by the New York Times as "compelling and luminous".

A distinguished chamber musician, she has appeared at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Santa Fe, Norfolk, Da Camera, Bridgehampton. Moab and Yellow Barn Chamber Music Festivals. Ms. Narucki has been a guest of the Brentano, Orion and Schoenberg String Quartets; her numerous recital appearances include Kleine Zaal in Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, Tisch Center for the Arts at the 92nd Street Y, Liszt Academy in Budapest, Princeton University, American Academy in Rome, and on the Horowitz Recital series at Yale University with pianist Boris Berman.

In 2007, Ms. Narucki and The Knights Chamber Orchestra presented the world premiere of Chance Encounter, a work that she co-conceived with Rome Prize winning composer Lisa Bielawa, which brings modern music to audiences outside traditional concert hall settings. The work, which earned grants from the Creative Capital Foundation, has since been performed at Yale University, and the Whitney Museum of Art, and in conjunction with visionary urban planner Robert Hammond, at the grand opening of the MAXXI Museum and as "Chance Encounter on the Tiber", both in Rome, Italy. The work will have its Canadian premiere at Music on Main's Modulus Series in Vancouver in October 2010.

Susan Narucki earned a 2000 Grammy award for George Crumb's Star-Child , and a Grammy nomination (Best Classical Vocal Performance) for Elliott Carter's Tempo e Tempi, both on Bridge Records. The soprano's extensive discography ranges from operas of Andriessen (Nonesuch) works of Schoenberg and Zemlinsky (Chandos) , Tavener's Song of The Angel (Angel/EMI), song cycles of Mario Davidovsky (Bridge) and a solo disc of music of Aaron Jay Kernis (Koch). Her performance of Jacob Druckman's Salome with the David Zinman and the Aspen Festival Orchestra was included in a two-CD set commemorating the Festival's 50th Anniversary Ms. Narucki's recent release, The Light that Is Felt: Songs of Charles Ives, with pianist Donald Berman (New World), received international acclaim and was selected as Editor's Choice of BBC Music Magazine.

Ms. Narucki has been a guest faculty member of Yale University. She currently serves as Professor of Music at the University of California, San Diego, where she directs the ensemble Kallisti .

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