YouTube favorites Igudesman & Joo brought their theatrical and musical mashups with a healthy dose of lunacy to the Overture Friday. Performing their new show “And Now Mozart,” violinist Aleksey Igudesman and pianist Hyung-Ki Joo graced Madison with what can only be described as a comic event that brought together the most unexpected genres of music and elements of theater. Trained as classical musicians from the wee age of 12, the two conquered many grand orchestras and symphonies before they concocted their currently trending madness on stage.
Last week, I unexpectedly enjoyed an in-depth chat with Igudesman on the phone as he took me through the process of what they do and spoke about the sheet music and DVDs they’re so proud to be universally releasing.
DC: How does one go from hating each other at the tumultuous age of 12 to being the successful duo that you are over 25 years later?
Igudesman: Well you know, hate is very close to love. After the initial hate period, we realized we both actually loved music. All sorts of music that is. We never wanted to restrict ourselves to one type of music. But at the same time we were both always surprised over how serious the world of music takes itself most of the time. We always wondered why because for us music had so much humor in it and music is so much more palatable, more fun when it does have humor in it or is combined with it. That’s why we started doing our shows and have been working on them for many years.
DC: The institute that you both attended, was that primarily only for classical music?
Igudesman: Yes, it was. The Yehudi Menuhin School was founded by a very famous violinist with the same name who happened to be a very open-minded person. One of the first people from the classical music world to play with the likes of jazz musicians, traditional Indian musicians etc. and so the spirit of the school was very innovative. That helped us grow into what we do. In “And Now Mozart” for instance, we combine rock and rap music with it. And it all fits together seamlessly because we draw a lot of parallels between the different types of music.
DC: You mentioned that the two of you wanted to challenge the somberness of classical music. I’m curious as to where does the desire for wanting to do something like that even come from?
Igudesman: It’s difficult to say because we work artistically and never actually thought that we wanted to change anything or perform in a way that is specifically nontraditional, that’s simply a byproduct. We just wanted to create something new, something where you combine different types of music with different aspects of art, theater and comedy. We try to do so by our compositions as well since we write and compose ourselves a lot. Recently we’ve even started publishing music on universal editions. To go with our current world tour, we’re even releasing some of our sheet music for violin and piano that can be bought so other people can be a part of the madness too.
DC: Was there a specific moment in time where it all just came together? The show, conception and everything that you wanted to do?
Igudesman: It was a long process since our first ideas were born when we were back in school and doing crazy things. We’ve never stopped doing crazy things. We believe in the inner child in ourselves and in our audience too. We treat our audience with the greatest respect, but also like kids who just want to have fun because essentially that is one of the things we believe we must never lose. A lot of our ideas are really wild mixes of clever intellect, which still call upon child-like silliness and madness. We find that that combination has a certain magic.
DC: Did you fear the prospect of any backlash from those that believe the traditions of classic music should be preserved as they are?
Igudesman: We’re actually very lucky. All the great and even the most traditional institutions always embraced what we were doing. They knew that we were never disrespectful of the music since we had fun with the music, not at the expense of it. So we’ve performed with the New York Philharmonic at the New Year’s concert, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and some of the greatest orchestras in the world. Nobody minds, nobody has ever said that “Oh my, they’re just clowns!” because they know that we are people who love the music and just want to transform it with our humor.
DC: I find it curious that you’ve chosen to combine two things that have always moved people, laughter and music … How does it actually feel being able to do something not many can do? Either you’re a musician or a comedian, rarely are people both those things.
Igudesman: It is a special feeling that is quite empowering. But we do believe that more people can choose such a path and we very much believe that people can use various parts of their personality or talents. In this day and age we’re told to specialize at a really young age all the time, we’re being made to choose and we’re told we have to stick to one thing and do that our whole life. But you know what? Every human is such a multifaceted creature, that we have so many talents and so many ways to explore them in our life. To enrich us and our lives. We chose this path of various talents because we knew we needed all of that to make us happy. Anyone can do that.
DC: Do you think there are facets of art, literature or any other thing in the world you still want to discover after this?
Igudesman: Absolutely! We’re both discovering many many things all the time. Composition as I said is very important to us, but movement too in combination of music. At the moment I’ve really gotten into dance, as we want to incorporate that more in our shows. We even have an aerobics number currently where we do a fitness exercise program with the public. Which is outrageous! But I’m practicing breakdance, popping, turfing and just a bunch of crazy dances at the moment.
DC: I also read that you grew up reading the plays of Shaw, Wilde and Chekhov. Does that mean you have an appreciation for literature too?
Igudesman: Oh yes. Our very beginnings come from literature. The humor in our shows was born from there. On one side you have Monty Python- and South Park-like humor, which is pretty outrageous and abstract. On the other end, through having read a lot of [the] three you mentioned, we craft their literature in a way that allows us to maintain our theatric aspects of the show. But they’re also very funny, so we have that too. We try to make it all come together like a theater play rather than be a performance of just random pieces. And we do it without the audience even feeling that too much. It’s more of an internal structure and the main thing is that we all always have fun together.
DC: You seem to be a fan of madness; you have to have read Lewis Carroll then?
Igudesman: Of course, read and loved his work. We’re very inspired by them. I do write a lot of poetry myself and I’ve published some stuff in combination with my compositions; Carroll has been an inspiration both as a writer and a poet. And as a loony!
DC: What do you think Mozart himself would have to say about what you do in a concert hall, and with his compositions?
Igudesman: Oh, Mozart? Oh, he loves it. I just spoke to him the other day. Apparently he might even be at the show in Madison. It’s a show about him, so he’s thinking of turning up, obviously. But also Madison is one of his favorite places, he said. He’s also a fan of our latest DVD, which we’ll be bringing to Madison, called “Funtastic Duo.” I wouldn’t want to plant my DVD myself so much, but Mozart says it really is splendid. And that people should come to the show, and buy the DVD. There are even rumors of him signing it himself, he likes the limelight. That Mozart. Thinks people love him or something like that. He’s a bit full of himself, but what are you gonna do?
DC: Classic Mozart. Just typical.
