Avie Records has announced that American soprano Susan Narucki, "one of the great practitioners of contemporary vocal music" (Opera News) has curated and recorded a unique set of art songs in an album titled This Island, released in February 2023. The collection of 20 songs also features eminent pianist Donald Berman, a longtime collaborator of Ms. Narucki's. The album consists of a collection of songs, chiefly by women, written in the first half of the 20th century, some of them receiving their world premiere recording here.


As Ms. Narucki explains, "During the summer of 2020, I turned to The Dark Interval , a slender volume of letters written by Rainer Maria Rilke to a friend, as an antidote to the profound sense of disconnection that was upon all of us in those early months of the COVID pandemic. A single reference made by Rilke in one of these letters was the catalyst for This Island."

Composers whose works are featured on This Island are Henriëtte Bosmans (1895-1952), Élisabeth Claisse (fl. 1922-23), Irène Fuerison (1875-1931), Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979) & Raoul Pugno (1852-1914), and Marion Bauer (1882-1955).