A Musical Journey Through Tradition and Memory

About Yevgeny Kutik
With a “dark-hued tone and razor-sharp technique” (The New York Times), violinist 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.

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.

Committed to the music of our time, Kutik regularly gives premiere and repeat performances of major works by today’s most celebrated composers. In January 2025, he makes his debut with the Las Vegas Philharmonic, led by Michelle Merrill, in a performance of Philip Glass’s Violin Concerto No. 2, The American Four Seasons. 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 specifically 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, a made-for-television classical music concert series released on DVD by Naxos and broadcast nationally on PBS.

Kutik’s additional releases on Marquis include his most recent album, The Death of Juliet and Other Tales (2021), which highlights folklore and folktales portrayed in the music of Prokofiev. The album features new arrangements by Kutik, Michael Gandolfi, and Kati Agócs, commissioned specifically for the album. In 2019, he released Meditations on Family, for which he commissioned eight composers to translate a personal family photo into a short musical miniature for violin and various ensemble, envisioning the project as a living archive of new works inspired by memories, home, and belonging. Strings Magazine featured Kutik as its cover story for the March/April issue, reporting, “True to Kutik’s vision, each miniature is a window into the composer’s emotional life.” Featured composers include Joseph Schwantner, Andreia Pinto Correia, Gity Razaz, Timo Andres, Chris Cerrone, Kinan Azmeh, Gregory Vajda, and Paola Prestini. Kutik’s 2016 album, Words Fail, uses Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words as a starting point to expand upon the idea that music surpasses traditional language in its expressive capabilities. His 2012 debut album, Sounds of Defiance, features the music of Achron, Pärt, Schnittke, and Shostakovich, focusing on music written during the darkest periods of the lives of these composers.

Performance highlights include his debuts at the Kennedy Center presented by Washington Performing Arts, and at the Ravinia Festival. He has appeared in recital as a 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 and Dayton Philharmonics; Detroit, Tallahassee, New Haven, Asheville, Wyoming, La Crosse and Glacier symphony orchestras; as well as Florida’s SYMPHONIA, New York City’s Riverside Symphony and Park Avenue Chamber Symphony, the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra of Boston. Abroad, he has appeared as guest soloist 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. He was a featured performer for the 2012 March of the Living observances, where he played for audiences at the Krakow Opera House and for over 10,000 people at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

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 and currently resides in Boston. 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. He is the recipient of the Salon de Virtuosi Grant as well as the Tanglewood Music Center Jules Reiner Violin Prize. Kutik’s violin was crafted in Italy in 1915 by Stefano Scarampella.  For more information, please visit www.yevgenykutik.com.

About Renana Gutman
Praised by the New York Times for her “passionate and insightful” playing, Renana Gutman has performed across four continents as an orchestral soloist, recitalist and collaborative artist. She played at venues like The Louvre Museum, Grenoble Museum (France), Carnegie Recital Hall, People’s Symphony Concerts, Merkin Hall (New York), St. Petersburg’s Philharmonia (Russia), Stresa Music Festival (Italy), Ravinia Rising Stars (Chicago), Jordan Hall, Gardner Museum (Boston), Herbst Theatre (St. Francisco), Menuhin Hall (UK), UNISA (South Africa), Marlboro (VT), and National Gallery, Phillips Collection, and Freer Gallery (Washington DC). Her performances are heard frequently on WQXR Young Artists Showcase, NY, WFMT Dame Myra Hess, Chicago, and MPR in Performances Today, MN.

Renana was one of four young pianists selected by the renowned Leon Fleisher to participate in his workshop on Beethoven piano sonatas hosted by Carnegie Hall, where she presented performances of Hammerklavier and Appassionata to critical acclaim. Her recording of Chopin etudes op.25 will be released soon by “The Chopin Project”.

A top prize winner at Los Angeles Liszt competition, International Keyboard Festival in New York, and Tel-Hai International Master Classes, she performed concerti such as Brahms 2nd, Rachmaninoff-Paganini Variations, and Beethoven’s Emperor with the Jerusalem Symphony, Haifa Symphony, Belgian “I Fiamminghi”, and Mannes College Orchestra. Her festival appearances included Marlboro and Ravinia, where she collaborated with prominent musicians like pianist Richard Goode, clarinetist Anthony McGill and members of the Guarneri string quartet, to name a few.

High in demand as a chamber musician, Renana toured with Musicians from Marlboro, and served as the collaborative pianist of Steans Institute at Ravinia Festival from 2012-2018, where she performed chamber music and lieder extensively. In last seasons, she performed chamber music with violist Kim Kashkashian, violinist Miriam Fried, and clarinetist Charles Neidich. She tours regularly with violinist Alexi Kenney, winner of Avery Fisher Grant.

Renana premiered newly commissioned music by Paul Schoenfield, Tamar Muskal, Judith Zaimont, and other living composers. As a member of Echoes of Hope project, she is also dedicated to performing obscure pieces by Jewish composers who perished in the Holocaust; Erwin Schulhoff, Viktor Ullmann, and others. She was a founder member of the award-winning piano trio “terzetto”. The trio performed in festivals and concerts across The United States.

Renana joined the piano faculty of Boston’s Longy School of Music of Bard College in the fall of 2019. She had previously been on the piano faculty of the Yehudi Menuhin Music School in the UK.

A native of Israel, Renana started playing at the age of six, and soon after, garnered multiple awards and honors. She received scholarships from the America Israel Cultural Foundation, and the Jewish Foundation for the Education of Women. She completed her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees at Mannes College of Music, NY, where she studied with Richard Goode. In Israel, her teachers were pianists Natasha Tadson, Viktor Derevianko, and the Israeli composer Arie Shapira.
Renana became an American citizen in 2015 and makes her home in Boston, MA. She also pursues her passion for Argentinian Tango, languages, and poetry.