Oct. 18: Violinist Yevgeny Kutik is Featured Soloist with La Crosse Symphony Orchestra – Conducted by Music Director Alexander Platt
Photo of Yevgeny Kutik by Griffin Harrington available in hi-resolution here.
Violinist Yevgeny Kutik Performs as Featured Soloist
with La Crosse Symphony Orchestra
in Violin Concerto in D Major by Jean Sibelius
Conducted by Music Director Alexander Platt
October 18, 2025 at 7:30pm
Viterbo Fine Arts Center | 929 Jackson Street | La Crosse, WI
Tickets and More Information
“polished dexterity and genteel, old-world charm” – WQXR
La Crosse, WI — On Saturday October 18, 2025 at 7:30pm, violinist Yevgeny Kutik, who The New York Times describes as having a “dark-hued tone and razor-sharp technique,” is the featured soloist with the La Crosse Symphony Orchestra (LSO), conducted by Music Director Alexander Platt. Kutik will perform Jean Sibelius’s Violin Concerto in D Major. The concert will also include America the Beautiful by composer Samuel A. Ward and lyricist Katharine Lee Bates, and Symphony in F Minor, Op. 34 by Johannes Brahms.
Yevgeny Kutik has captivated audiences worldwide with an old-world sound that communicates a modern intellect. Praised for his technical precision and virtuosity, he is lauded for his poetic and imaginative interpretations of standard works as well as rarely heard and newly composed repertoire.
Kutik says, “I’m so thrilled to be returning to La Crosse to perform with my dear friend and collaborator, Alexander Platt. Playing the Sibelius Violin Concerto is always an inspiration—the way the score swings between white-hot technical fireworks and vast, icy landscapes is nothing short of genius. It’s no wonder this masterpiece is considered one of the greatest works ever written for the violin.
Jean Sibelius, who said he originally wanted to become “a celebrated violinist,” found that despite his passion for and extreme commitment to learning the instrument from age 14, his musical gifts were more suited for composing. Written between 1902–04, the three movement violin concerto demands a high degree of technical skill and performance. Its expressive but notably dark mood of the work stood out at the time it was first performed. The Finnish composer’s artistic instinct led him to revise the work and write what has come to be regarded as one of the most extraordinary violin concertos of the 20th century.”
More about Yevgeny Kutik: Committed to the music of our time, Kutik regularly gives premiere and repeat performances of major works by today’s most celebrated composers. This season, he gives the world premiere of a new work by Jonathan Leshnoff with pianist Llewellyn Sanchez-Werner presented by Newport Classical. In January 2025, he made his debut with the Las Vegas Philharmonic, led by Michelle Merrill, in a performance of Philip Glass’s Violin Concerto No. 2. In 2022 at the Tanglewood Music Festival, he gave the world premiere of Cântico, a work for solo violin by Andreia Pinto Correia co-commissioned for Kutik by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In 2021, he debuted with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra led by Leonard Slatkin, performing the world premiere of Joseph Schwantner’s Violin Concerto, written for him. The concerto is based on Schwantner’s earlier work, The Poet’s Hour – Soliloquy for Violin, which Kutik recorded on episode six of Gerard Schwarz’s All-Star Orchestra, released on DVD by Naxos and broadcast nationally on PBS.
A native of Minsk, Belarus, Yevgeny Kutik immigrated to the United States with his family at the age of five. His 2014 album, Music from the Suitcase: A Collection of Russian Miniatures (Marquis Classics), features music he found in his family’s suitcase after immigrating to the United States from the Soviet Union in 1990, and debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard Classical chart. The album garnered critical acclaim and was featured on NPR's All Things Considered and in The New York Times. Kutik’s recent releases on Marquis include The Death of Juliet and Other Tales (2021) and Meditations on Family (2019), for which he commissioned eight composers to translate a personal family photo into a short musical miniature – a project featured on the cover of Strings magazine. Kutik’s other recordings include his debut album, Sounds of Defiance (2012), and Words Fail (2016), both released to critical acclaim.
Other recent performance highlights include debuts at the Kennedy Center presented by Washington Performing Arts, and at the Ravinia Festival, as well as recital appearances as part of the Dame Myra Hess Concerts Chicago; at UCLA; Peoples' Symphony Concerts, Kaufman Music Center, and National Sawdust in New York City; the Embassy Series and The Phillips Collection in Washington D.C.; and at the Lobkowicz Collections Prague presented by Prince William Lobkowicz. Festival performances have included the Tanglewood Music Festival, Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival, Ravinia, the Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele in Germany, and the Verbier Festival in Switzerland.
Kutik made his major orchestral debut in 2003 with Keith Lockhart and The Boston Pops as the First Prize recipient of the Boston Symphony Orchestra Young Artists Competition, and has since performed with orchestras throughout the country including the Rochester (NY) and Dayton Philharmonics; the Detroit, New Haven, Asheville, and Wyoming symphony orchestras; and more. Abroad, he has appeared with Germany’s Norddeutsche Philharmonie Rostock and WDR Rundfunk Orchestra Köln, Montenegro’s Montenegrin Symphony Orchestra, Japan’s Tokyo Vivaldi Ensemble, and the Cape Town Philharmonic in South Africa.
Passionate about his heritage and its influence on his artistry, Kutik is an advocate for the Jewish Federations of North America, the organization that assisted his family in coming to the United States, and regularly speaks and performs across the United States to both raise awareness and promote the assistance of refugees from around the world.
Yevgeny Kutik began violin studies with his mother, Alla Zernitskaya, and went on to study with Zinaida Gilels, Shirley Givens, Roman Totenberg, and Donald Weilerstein. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Boston University and a master’s degree from the New England Conservatory. Kutik is the Artistic Director and co-founder of The Birch Festival – a festival built around connecting and integrating leading musicians with the Berkshire community, while highlighting the unique and original stories of those who make up the Berkshires. His violin was crafted in Italy in 1915 by Stefano Scarampella. For more information, please visit www.yevgenykutik.com.
For Calendar Editors:
Description: Violinist Yevgeny Kutik, described as having a “dark-hued tone and razor-sharp technique,” (The New York Times) is the featured soloist in a performance with the La Crosse Symphony Orchestra (LSO), conducted by Music Director Alexander Platt. Kutik will perform Jean Sibelius’s Violin Concerto in D Major, known as one of the greatest of the 20th century. The concert program will also include America the Beautiful by composer Samuel A. Ward and lyricist Katharine Lee Bates, and Symphony in F Minor, Op. 34 by Johannes Brahms, arranged in honor of the LSO’s 125th Anniversary by Daron Hagen.
Concert details:
Who: Violinist Yevgeny Kutik
Presented by La Crosse Symphony Orchestra
Conducted by Music Director Alexander Platt
What: Music by Jean Sibelius, Samuel A. Ward and Katharine Lee Bates, Johannes Brahms, and Daron Hagen
When: Saturday, October 18, 2025 at 7:30pm
Where: Viterbo Fine Arts Center, 929 Jackson Street, La Crosse, WI 54601
Tickets and information: www.lacrossesymphony.org/event/opening-night-and-a-world-premiere/