Photo of Susan Narucki by Lisa-Marie Mazzucco

American soprano Susan Narucki was nominated for a 2026 Grammy® Award in the category Best Classical Solo Vocal Recording for her most recent recording, György Kurtág's Kafka Fragments, released in 2025 by Avie Records (AV2760).   

Ms. Narucki notes, "I have been immersed in György Kurtág's astonishing music for decades, and it was a pleasure to record his Kafka Fragments - a cornerstone of modern vocal chamber music - with my dear colleague, violinist Curtis Macomber, who is a superlative interpreter of the music of our time. The nomination is an honor for us both."  

This is the Recording Academy's fourth recognition of Susan Narucki over the past twenty-five years. In addition to the most recent nomination, she has earned two others in the category of Best Classical Vocal Recording: a 2020 nomination for The Edge of Silence: Music of György Kurtág (AVIE AV2408), as well as a 2002 nomination for Elliott Carter's Tempo e Tempi (Bridge Records 1113). Her recording of the chamber opera Cuatro Corridos (Bridge Records 9473), which she commissioned, was nominated for a Latin Grammy in 2017; and she was the soprano soloist on the iconic recording of George Crumb's work for soloist and orchestra, Star Child (Bridge Records 9095), which earned the 2001 Grammy Award for Best Classical Composition.   

Over the course of her entire career, Ms. Narucki in concert has demonstrated her lifelong devotion to the music of our time. Her recent performances with American pianist Donald Berman at the Longy School of Music of Bard College included commissioned works by Mexican composer Georgina Derbez and American composer Marti Epstein; the duo will be performing a new cycle by Scott Wheeler to the evocative poetry of Rose Ausländer on January 14, 2026 at UC San Diego. On the same concert, Ms. Narucki and coloratura soprano Kirsten Ashley Wiest will present the world premiere of a new work for two soprano voices by Dutch composer and poet Rozalie Hirs.  

“Susan Narucki and Curtis Macomber are superb advocates for Kafka Fragments...Narucki performs Kafka Fragments with breathtaking technical mastery, riveting dramatic involvement, and a voice that is rich, powerful, and tonally attractive. Curtis Macomber is a force of nature in his traversal of Kurtág’s supremely demanding score. And Narucki and Macomber’s interpretation reflects their extensive and rewarding experience as collaborators...A triumphant realization of Kurtág’s extraordinary creation."

★★★★★: György Kurtág’s riveting Kafka Fragments, brilliantly performed by Susan Narucki and Curtis Macomber - Ken Meltzer / Fanfare

“Inspired performances … Susan Narucki and Curtis Macomber take the wild Kafka Fragments in their stride … sung with pleading sweetness … the beauty of a visual image unlocks an answering musical beauty from Macomber’s violin.” – ★★★★★ Vocal Choice / Michael Church / BBC Music Magazine

"Her collection The Edge of Silence (12/19) confirmed Susan Narucki as a Kurtág exponent to reckon with, and her take on the present work [Kafka Fragments] leaves no doubt as to her identity with his music. One of its chief assets is her ability to render these 40 settings as an unbroken while cumulative entity, knitting together those disjunctive epigrams of its first part as deftly as she does the ensuing items, not necessarily longer in duration but more developed in syntax. She is ably abetted by Curtis Macomber, much more than an accompanist in the way that his violin shadows but also interacts with the voice such that one becomes the projection of the other."

-Richard Whitehouse / Gramophone

"Soprano Susan Narucki and violinist Curtis Macomber have performed the work together for some time, and they are quite sensitive to the roles played by the two parts… these are fascinating works if one lets oneself go down the rabbit hole, and it is likely that Narucki and Macomber’s performances will make listeners do just that.” ★★★★½ - James Manheim, AllMusic.com 

“Susan instinctively imbues the work with the widely varied moods of anguish, longing and rage alongside humor, absurdity and ecstasy that the texts convey.” – Russell Trunk, Exclusive magazine 

“Whether singing, speaking, shrieking, or whispering, she totally inhabits Kurtág’s Kafkaesque world. Violinist Curtis Macomber is her equal, his violin displaying the full range of the instrument’s capabilities…The detailed, eloquent notes are by Narucki. She writes as well as she sings, which is really saying something.” - Jack Sullivan, American Record Guide 

"Paul Griffiths has called Kafka Fragments a successor to Winterreise, not least because so much of the chosen texts are to do with journeying. I agree with that and would go further. Fine performances of the Schubert and Kafka cycles both have a transformative effect on the listener and that’s exactly

what I have felt on repeated listening to this very fine performance." ★★★★★: One of the finest performances of a classic modern song cycle available

-Dominic Hartley / Fanfare

Susan Narucki is one of the greatest champions of 20th and 21st century music performing today. Aside from her decades-long association with György Kurtág and his music, she has commissioned and premiered new works throughout her career. She has been a featured soloist with contemporary music ensembles across the globe such as Asko/Schoenberg, London Sinfonietta, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Ensemble Modern, Nieuw Ensemble, ELISION, ICE, Alarm Will Sound, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Speculum Musicae, NYNME, Network for New Music, and Collage. 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.

Ms. Narucki's musical interests and professional focus have also frequently concerned important social issues. One example would be Inheritance (Albany Records TROY 1819), a chamber opera composed by Grawemeyer Award-winning composer Lei Liang which imaginatively addresses the complex issue of gun violence in America. Another is Cuatro Corridos, a chamber opera with music by Hebert Vásquez, Arlene Sierra, Lei Liang and Hilda Paredes. It is based on true events, and confronts the issue of sex-trafficking across the U.S-Mexico border. After an extensive performance schedule throughout the U.S. and Mexico, the piece was recorded (Bridge Records 9473) and ultimately nominated for a Latin GRAMMY®. In the recording immediately preceding Kafka Fragments, This Island (AVIE AV2592), Ms. Narucki unearths an entire album's worth of beautiful songs composed by early 20th century women composers, most of whom were heretofore completely unknown ("...consummately expressive performers...one of the best recordings I've heard so far in 2023." - Christian Carey, Sequenza 21).

Ms. Narucki has appeared 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. Conductors with whom she has performed include Pierre Boulez, James Levine, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Michael Tilson Thomas, Oliver Knussen, Reinbert de Leeuw, Herbert Blomstedt, and Kent Nagano.

At the University of California at San Diego, where she has been on the music faculty since 2008, Ms. Narucki was named inaugural Director of Arts and Community Engagement, an initiative from the Division of Arts and Humanities whose goal is to connect students, faculty, alumni, staff and the greater community in a variety of performance, program and academic activities that highlight art as a means of fostering broader cultural dialogue and civic engagement. In 2020 she was named Distinguished Professor of Music.

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For more information about Susan Narucki, visit susannarucki.net,

kathrynkingmedia.com and call 917-751-8228.