UC San Diego music professor Susan Narucki is understandably delighted to be in the company of such fellow 2020 Grammy Awards nominees as Lizzo, Billie Eilish and Lil Nas X.
“Lizzo and Billie are pretty great!” said Narucki, an acclaimed opera, art-song and contemporary classical music singer. “I really like Lil Nas X, too, and the whole idea that country-music and rap can evolve into a new synthesis.”
But Narucki has accomplished something these three young nominees will probably never seek to achieve in their respective careers. And that’s not just because she is nominated for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album, a category Lizzo, Eilish and Lil Nas X do not seem inclined to pursue.
Narucki sings every word on her Grammy-nominated album, “The Edge of Silence — Works For Voice By György Kurtág,” exclusively in Hungarian, Russian and German, the first two of which are especially difficult languages. A labor of love for this fearless soprano, she has spent more than 30 years of her life learning, honing and mastering Kurtág’s unabashedly challenging and uniquely crafted music, as well as the works of other, similarly bold composers.
“Singers don’t always become fluent in the languages in which we sing, but we have to be experts in the pronunciation and know what every single word means,” said Narucki, who has previously been featured on two Grammy-nominated and one Latin Grammy-nominated albums.
Her next concert here, titled “Suddenly Drenched with Dawn,” takes place Feb. 5 at UC San Diego’s Conrad Prebys Concert Hall. She will perform compositions by Francis Poulenc, John Dowland, Kaija Saariaho, Karin Rehnqvist and Toshio Hosokawa.
George Varga sits down with Grammy Award winning and 2020 Grammy nominee, Susan Narucki
Bursting forth like a storm
The lyrics Narucki sings on her Grammy-nominated “The Edge of Silence” are poems by Rimma Dalos, Dezso Tandori, Kobayashi Issa, Amy Karolyi and Pal Gulyas that have been set to music by Kurtág.
The storied Hungarian composer will be 93 in March. His deviously intricate pieces can rise from a whisper to an explosion in a mere instant. He specializes in crafting musical miniatures, some as short as just 10 seconds and many under three minutes.
At any length, and especially at their most brief, Kurtág’s work has an emotional and structural complexity that would be daunting to pull off in any language. To do so with the grace, pin-point precision and carefully calibrated power Narucki achieves is rarer still.
“One of the things I learned working directly with Kurtág, which I have done on a number of occasions, is that music is a living thing,” said Narucki, who has commissioned and performed several provocative chamber operas by other composers whose music is simultaneously refined and visceral.
“The way in which Kurtág notates his music — and the way I understand he wants it to be executed — is for it to be spontaneous and asymmetrical. So, it’s almost as if you gather the intensity of thought and emotion, like a storm, and then let it burst forth.”
Narucki smiled as she pointed to the box in which she keeps the musical scores for a number of Kurtág’s compositions. He personally gifted her with them during one of her visits to Budapest; several contain his handwritten suggestions and instructions.
“In some ways, it can be terrifying to perform his music,” Narucki said. “Because to do it really well means it isn’t always perfect — if we understand perfection to be the most absolute correct execution. What I understand of Kurtág’s music, and of what he wants, is that the most correct approach is the one that is the most vivid, alive and risky.
“So, it’s like any intense experience you have in life. It’s beautiful and terrifying all at once.”
“We all wanted to be Joni Mitchell!” says cutting-edge chamber opera singer Susan Narucki of her musical goal as a teenager, (Peggy Peattie / UT San Diego )
A champion of music and social causes
Embracing those extremes, and the many points in between, has long been one of Narucki’s trademarks as a champion of bold, edgy music that addresses age-old themes and current social issues with equal fire and finesse.
Or, as UCSD Associate Dean of the Division of Arts and Humanities Aleck Karis noted in a 2017 Union-Tribune interview: “Susan is fearless. You have to be fearless if you’re doing a lot of contemporary music, like she is, and be ready to tackle whatever is thrown at you. But Susan is really going out of her way to challenge herself and her audiences.”
Those sentiments are shared by Andrew Munsey, who served as the audio engineer on Narucki’s Grammy-nominated “The Edge of Silence.” He also engineered her Latin Grammy-nominated 2017 album, “Cuatro Corridos,” a bi-national chamber-opera that addresses human trafficking and sex slavery.
“Susan has extraordinarily high standards,” said Munsey, UCSD’s full-time staff recording engineer. “She spends a lot of time working with the composers directly. So, when you are hearing her sing, you’re hearing the composer’s intention, not a piece of repertoire she’s picking up off the page. The music she performs and records is deep inside her, and she has full ownership of it.
“What’s also really special about Susan is her commissioning of operas and other works that are right on the nose, socially. She has said very powerful things with these works that are extremely timely.”
Narucki recorded “The Edge of Silence” over two days in 2018 at UCSD’s state-of-the-art Conrad Prebys Concert Hall. She is accompanied on the nearly 59 minute-long Avie Records’ release by pianist Donald Berman, violinist Curtis Macomber, contrabassist Kathryn Schulmeister, and — on the hammered dulcimer-like Hungarian instrument known as a cimbalom — Nicholas Tolle.
But the genesis of the album dates back to 1986, when Narucki made her debut at the prestigious Ojai Music Festival as a replacement for another soprano. She was personally invited to the festival by esteemed conductor Kent Nagano, who led the Los Angeles Philharmonic as the young and then-little-known Narucki sang “Messages of the Late Miss R.V. Troussova.”
Composed by Kurtág, the lyrics to the 25-minute song-cycle are entirely in Russian, a language Narucki had never spoken — let alone sung — before.
“I studied for four hours a day with a friend of mine who has great proficiency in Russian,” Narucki recalled.
She had only eight weeks to learn Kurtág’s thorny piece, which Narucki had never performed anywhere before, let alone for an Ojai Festival audience that included the Hungarian composer and his wife and musical partner, Magda.
Kurtág was suitably impressed by Narucki’s performance. He told her so, albeit through a French interpreter, since he didn’t speak English at the time and Narucki didn’t know Hungarian well enough to converse yet.
A year later, in 1987, Narucki made the first of several trips to Budapest to work with the composer directly. He learned English, which accounts for his handwritten notes on the scores of his music that he gave her.
Narucki has since performed some of his pieces, by her estimate, 100 or more times since the 1990s. But it was only in 2018 that she felt fully ready to record an entire album of his works for “The Edge of Silence.” Earning a Grammy nomination was the last thing on her mind.
“I’ve been preparing to record this music for, oh, 33 years!” Narucki said with a laugh.
“I’ve wanted to make this album for a long time. But I wanted to wait until enough time had passed that I felt I could do something that made sense for me as a mature artist — a take on these pieces that represents my understanding of the music.”
Make that some of his music.
“There’s so much more,” Narucki said, as she caressed one of Kurtág’s yet-to-be-recorded scores that he gave her. “There are so many more ideas here. Even after working on it for 30-plus years, there’s still more I can do.”
At a glance
Name: Susan Narucki
Born: Belleville, N.J.
Early musical goal: “We all wanted to be Joni Mitchell!”
Education: Syracuse University and San Francisco Conservatory
Performance credits: Many around the world, including the Netherlands Opera, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony and London Sinfonietta.
Albums: More than 50 albums as a soloist including recordings in orchestral, opera, chamber music and voice and piano settings. Among her past collaborators are Zubin Mehta, the Schoenberg Quartet and film composer John Tavener.
Commissions: In 2013, Narucki commissioned the chamber-opera “Cuatro Corridos,” which chronicles trafficking of women across the U.S.-Mexican border. The second chamber-opera she commissioned, “Inheritance,” addresses gun violence. It debuted in 2018 at UC San Diego with a score by Lei Liang, who in late 2019 won the Grawemeyer Award for Composition. She has also commissioned numerous other pieces for voice and ensemble, voice and piano, and other musical configurations.
At UC San Diego: Narucki joined the faculty in 2008 as a music professor. The following year saw her launch kallisti, an ensemble that teams graduate students with veteran composers and performers to showcase new and overlooked pieces. In 2019, Narucki was selected to be the school’s Director of Art and Community Engagement, a program housed within the Institute of Arts and Humanities.
Singing her praises
Why do Susan Narucki’s fellow artists hold her in such high regard? We asked several of her fellow UC San Diego professors. Each has collaborated with Narucki and are acclaimed solo artists in their own right.
Steven Schick: “Susan is that consummate musician who is as generous as she is gifted. She can sing anything — and she has, both in the grandest halls and for the most intimate of local audiences. She is a treasure of our community.”
Lei Liang: “Susan’s passion for vision, integrity and the depth of artistic expression inspires those around her. I feel deeply fortunate to have her as a colleague and have been inspired by her superb artistry and energy. She is an incredible partner for creating works that matter both artistically and socially. Her Kurtag recording that won the Grammy nomination is one of my personal favorites — it’s truly a gem of beauty and truth, and an extraordinary gift to the world.”
Mark Dresser: “Susan is a world-class soprano, a fearless artist and powerhouse whose social activism and collaborative energy extends into commissioning, performing and producing new operas. These include the heralded ‘Cuatro Corridos,’ about sex trafficking, and the critically acclaimed ‘Inheritance,’ which was composed by Lei Liang. She is attracting students from around the world who come to UCSD to study with her and the dynamic vocal program that she fiercely advocates for. Those students are lucky to be mentored by an artist who is continuously self-actualizing at the highest levels, as evidenced by her recent Grammy nomination. We are fortunate to have her in our department and in our community.”
Susan Narucki’s Grammy history
2000: Sang as the featured vocal soloist on composer George Crumb’s “Star-Child,” which won the Grammy for Best Classical Contemporary Composition.
2002: Nominated for Best Classical Vocal Performance for “Tempo E Tempi,” an album of music composed by Elliott Carter
2017: Nominated for “Cuatro Corridos,” a bi-national chamber-opera about human trafficking and sex slavery that Narucki commissioned and on which she is the sole singer.
2019: Nominated for Best Classical Vocal Performance for her album “The Edge of Silence — Works For Voice By György Kurtág.” (The winner of this and about 70 other Grammy categories will be announced during today’s live-stream of the pre-telecast portion of the awards show.)
“Suddenly Drenched with Dawn,” a concert by Susan Narucki
Featuring: Pianist Aleck Karis, guitarist Pablo Gomez, soprano Kirsten Ashley Wiest, flutist Teresa Diaz-de-Cossio and percussionist Sean Dowgray
When: 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 4 (new date)
Where: Conrad Prebys Concert Hall, UC San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla
Tickets: $15.50 (general public) $10:50 for students and faculty; student-rush tickets are free one-hour before the concert, with proper student ID
Phone: (858) 534-8497
Online: music.ucsd.edu
Follow Susan Narucki to the Grammy Awards' nominee reception: Grammy Awards’ nominees reception a high note for soprano and UCSD professor Susan Narucki