‘Violin-ism’ without mercy

“It’s the perfect violin concerto,” Kutik said. “It’s a perfect mix of good old-fashioned violin-ism — if there is such a word — and good old-fashioned virtuosity.”

But Kutik’s backstory surely has something to do with the extra crease of passion in his forehead. When 5-year-old Kutik and his family came to the United States from Belarus in 1990 fleeing anti-Semitic persecution, they were allowed to take two suitcases. Against all common sense, Kutik’s mother, Alla Zernitskaya, crammed one of them with a trove of rare and precious sheet music by Russian composers.

Fourteen years later, Kutik brought this delicate bouquet of seldom-heard waltzes, nocturnes and miniatures to light in an unusual CD, “Music From the Suitcase.” The deeply personal project bypassed big names like Brahms and Tchaikovsky, hit a nerve with listeners and earned Kutik a March 18 profile in The New York Times.

The experience tested Kutik’s skills and his heart in unexpected ways.

“It was a long year, but I learned a lot about many different things,” he said. “I learned about what my family went through back in Russia.”

When Zernitskaya was laid off from a job teaching violin at a school for gifted children, she was told flat-out that the school had exceeded its quota of Jewish staff members. The minister of culture was no help. “You have your own country, find employment there,” Kutik said he told her.

As Kutik’s career reaches a national level, he is still unpacking that suitcase. “I discovered compositions and composers I’d never heard of,” Kutik said. He decided to include a Yiddish song on the CD after visiting concentration camps in Poland.

“It wasn´t just a recording project,” he said. “It helped me grow as an artist and as a person.”

To Lansing Symphony maestro Timothy Muffitt, Kutik is the ideal soloist, engaging to audiences but serious as a bottle of Stoli stashed in a snowbank.

“He has an incredible story to tell with ‘Music from the Suitcase,’ but most of all, he’s one of those white-hot talents with a uniqueness to his playing,” Muffitt said. “He’s not cookie cutter —he’s polished but not polished.”

Muffitt was impressed that Kutik’s debut CD, “Songs of Defiance,” waded into chill waters of politically charged 20th century masters like Dmitri Shostakovich, Arvo Pärt and Alfred Schnittke.

“That tells me a lot about him as an artist,” Muffitt said. “For who he is, his debut statement shouldn’t be Beethoven. He has something else he can say that maybe nobody else can.”

Muffitt described Friday’s Bruch concerto as “full-blown romantic music” with a lot of give and take between soloist and orchestra. “That´s part of the challenge and part of the fun,” Muffitt said. “All the musicians on stage have to connect in a very strong way.”

In Kutik’s view, it´s a warhorse, but a frisky one.

“The way the violin interacts with the orchestra — it´s not a traditional format,” Kutik said. “The first movement is short, like a prelude, but it walks the listener into a much more substantial second and third movement. It’s really fun to play.”

Understatement is not exactly the watchword for Friday’s concert. The night’s anchor work, Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony, not only has its heart on its sleeve, but its guts, loins and bowels as well.

“Tchaikovsky is a deep well,” Muffitt said.

The maestro loves to massage those Tchaikovskian harmonies as they burn across the orchestra like full-body blushes.

“He was a genius at creating character in his music through orchestration, through voicing,” he said. Each harmony has a specific role in the drama. “Is it all bunched up in the lower register or spread through the entire spectrum? They both have different effects,” he explained.

Or you can forget what Muffitt just said, stealthily open that Stoli and sweat out the symphony’s raging march from anguish to triumph.

“The listener can sense that there´s more to this than just architecture,” Muffitt said. “There´s a very strong and intimate and specific emotional content to it.”

To open the night and the season, Muffitt picked music from one of those rarely sighted living composers, Bostonbased Michael Gandolfi. “The Willowtwist” is a snippet from an epic cycle called “The Garden of Cosmic Speculation,” is a brisk four-minute ride featuring two of the orchestra’s star players, principal trumpeter Rich Illman and principal trombonist Ava Ordman.

Muffitt said he puts a lot of extra thought into any season opener, however brief. Neither snoozing nor bafflement are in order.

“I want it to be uplifting, to set a tone for anticipation and excitement,” he said. “I want it to be something everybody will gravitate to.”

Lansing Symphony Orchestra

Yevgeny Kutik, violin 8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 12 Wharton Center Cobb Great Hall $15-50