In 2004, Korean-British pianist Richard Hyung-ki Joo and Russian violinist Aleksey Igudesman staged the kind of concert they wanted to attend. It turned out thousands of others wanted to attend them, too. Imagine the anarchy of South Park and the Marx Brothers mashed up with the musical virtuosity of pianist Lang Lang and violinist Nigel Kennedy. That doesn’t come close to describing Igudesman and Joo, the duo gifted with astonishing musical and comic talents in equal parts. They’re here for a rare duo-only concert, “An Evening with Igudesman & Joo,” presented by the Constella Festival on Thursday. Joo is looking forward to “going it duo,” as he puts it.
“It’s going to be wonderful because this is something we almost never do,” he says. “‘An Evening With’ allows us to do things that we wouldn’t do in a show with an orchestra. We can really mix it up.”
Igudesman and Joo have been mixing it up since they met at the Yehudi Menuhin School in Surrey, England, when they were 12 years old. It’s not just the frequently unconventional approach to their instruments — playing the violin with an electric mixer or the piano with wooden blocks — it’s also the marvelous mashup of styles, combining Classical with Rock, Disco, Jazz and Funk, for starters. Musical boundaries evaporate as the comedy escalates. And the audience is in hysterics.
They’ve appeared with the world’s leading orchestras, creating musical mayhem with renowned artists such as Joshua Bell, Hilary Hahn, John Malkovich and Sir Roger Moore. Their YouTube videos clock in with millions of hits and they’ve been featured in films. Classical music organizations would kill for their audience — sell-out crowds of all ages and backgrounds, many new to concert halls.
Speaking via Skype from his home in Vienna, Joo does not make a full 180 from his frantic onstage persona. Passionate about their work, his serious responses are punctuated by hilarious asides that never derail the conversation — just like their concerts.
It was hate at first sight when Igudesman and Joo met. There’s a hilarious account of what brought them together on their website, but according to Joo, the moment of truth came a couple of months later.
“We shared the notion that the Classical music world which we loved so much was taking itself way too seriously,” Joo says. “Going to concerts was like going to a funeral.”
“We were young and we didn’t know much but we knew Classical music was full of life,” he continues. “Through our own projects and the music we wrote, we could at least create events that we would want to go to.”
But it isn’t easy. Comedy and music depend on rhythm and timing, and a performance that looks effortless is the result of practice and more practice. Joo acknowledges the intense preparation, adding that the routines also look spontaneous because he and Igudesman continue to tweak it.
“We make tiny adjustments all the time,” he says. “We keep a pad backstage and make notes.”
He says audiences love the subtle changes in now-classic routines, like Igudesman’s soulful violin solo that morphs into “I Will Survive.”
The routines evolved out of a longtime fascination with drama, comedy and television. Both musicians share a passion for classic and contemporary dramatic works ranging from Shakespeare to Ionesco, and they grew up with the influences of great British comics, especially Monty Python. The tie that binds is a love of music, all music.
“Why cannot Pop, Rock, Reggae, Jazz, Hip Hop, comedy, Beethoven, Brahms and theater live happily side by side?” Joo asks.
In a typical Igudesman & Joo performance the genres do just that, and the comic creativity is multi-dimensional.
“Laughter is quadraphonic,” Joo says. “People laugh at different things. There’s always some joke for the insiders, there’s something physical for the kids and there’s beautiful music.”
Where do the ideas come from? Sometimes from a piano tuner with his own ideas about transforming the piano into a heavy metal guitar. Or it can be a series of similar chord progressions. Joo points out that “Killing Me Softly,” “The Final Countdown,” “Autumn Leaves” and Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony share the same harmonic structure, “So why not put them together in a medley?” he says.
Speaking of their upcoming appearance, Joo says, “We’re trying to keep it as last-minute as possible — just to keep us fresh and on our toes.”
AN EVENING WITH IGUDESMAN & JOO takes place 8 p.m. Thursday at SCPA’s Mayerson Theater, 108 W. Central Parkway, Over-the-Rhine. More information and tickets: 513-549-7175 or constellafestival.org.
