Classical Arizona PBS celebrates The Phoenix Symphony with a concert led by renowned conductor Andrew Litton. He is Music Director of the New York City Ballet, a position he has held since 2015, and has been a frequent presence with The Phoenix Symphony in recent seasons. Litton returned to conduct the November 7-9, 2025 concerts, joined by violinist Yevgeny Kutik as the guest soloist.
The program opened with a dramatic flourish — Ludwig van Beethoven’s CORIOLAN Overture, which was a huge hit for the composer from its premiere in 1807, and remains a beloved favorite.
Dynamic young Belarusian violinist Yevgeny Kutik then joined The Phoenix Symphony to share his lifelong passion for the music of Dmitri Shostakovich. The composer was denounced by Joseph Stalin, blacklisted, and forced to live in constant fear of arrest during the Great Purge. And Kutik’s own family fled the Soviet Union in 1989 – like many other Jewish families – when he was only 4 years old. With little money, and few belongings, they came to this United States, where he was able to continue his music studies. Yevgeny Kutik plays the composer’s dramatic, Klezmer-inspired Violin Concerto #1 in a minor Op.77. It has been one of Kutik’s “go to” performance pieces since he fell in love with it as a young teenager.
The final marquee piece of the program allowed Andrew Litton to share his deep knowledge of Peter Tchaikovsky’s music, playing one of the composer’s exuberant, hidden gems. Tchaikovsky’s ORCHESTRAL SUITE #3 is a big, bold work that calls for a large orchestra with extra brass and woodwind instruments. He wrote it between April and July of 1884, during a relaxed and happy time while staying in the country with his sister and her family, taking hikes, playing cards with his brother-in-law, and studying Mozart scores.
