Post-modern classical duo Igudesman & Joo come to Palo Alto February 21

Oshman Family JCC presents PBS favorites Igudesman & Joo, the avant-garde musical duo that gives classical music a twist, with “A Little Nightmare Music,” a humorous journey through off-the-wall musical dreamscapes. Violinist Aleksey Igudesman and pianist Hyung-ki Joo are highly skilled classically-trained musicians who have been creating slapstick and pop-culture infused musical performances for the past ten years. “A Little Nightmare Music” is a high-flying musical fantasy with violin bows lost to vacuum cleaners and pianos played upside-down.

Aleksey Igudesman and Hyung-ki Joo have taken the world by storm with their unique and hilarious theatrical shows that combine comedy with classical music and popular culture, following in the footsteps of luminaries such as Victor Borge and Dudley Moore. After meeting at the age of twelve as music students at the Yehudi Menuhin School in the UK, the two began collaborating and in 2004 created their first groundbreaking show, “A Little Nightmare Music” (a play on Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik). Since then, their YouTube clips have amassed more than 35 million hits, and the duo has appeared on tour and in television specials around the globe. The New York Times described their performances as “fueled by genuine, dazzling virtuosity. It’s that final ingredient that adds a dose of magic to their routine — and proves infectious to other musicians.”

Throughout the years, Igudesman & Joo have performed as a duo and as soloists with chamber and symphony orchestras on many of the world’s biggest stages. Many of classical music’s biggest names, such as Emanuel Ax, Joshua Bell, Janine Jansen, Gidon Kremer, Mischa Maisky, Viktoria Mullova and Julian Rachlin, have joined them in their musical sketches. Igudesman & Joo have also teamed up with actors such as John Malkovich and former James Bond, Sir Roger Moore, on several occasions in aid of UNICEF. Equally comfortable performing in classical concert halls and stadiums in front of crowds of 18,000, their collective dream is to make classical music accessible to a wider and younger audience.

Aleksey Igudesman was born in Leningrad, Russia in 1973. At the age of 12 he was accepted at the Yehudi Menuhin School, a prestigious music secondary school in the UK. He continued his studies in violin with Boris Kuschnir at the Vienna Conservatoire from 1989 to 1998. Igudesman has published three violin sonatas, the second dedicated to Julian Rachlin and the third to Viktoria Mullova, who also played the world premiere of the piece. In a project titled “Violins of the World,” Igudesman performed original violin duets with Gidon Kremer, Julian Rachlin, Janine Jansen, Vadim Repin, Pavel Vernikov and Alexandra Soumm. He has presented concerts all over the world with his string trio, “Trilogy,” as well as recording several CDs for Sony BMG. Igudesman was also a featured violinist in the Academy Award-nominated soundtrack for the 2009 film Sherlock Holmes, composed by Hans Zimmer.

Born in England to South Korean parents, Hyung-ki Joo began his formal training in the UK at the Yehudi Menuhin School with Peter Norris and Seta Tanyel and later earned both his Bachelor and Master of Music from the Manhattan School of Music, where he studied with Nina Svetlanova. Other teachers include Richard Goode and Oleg Maisenberg. As a soloist, he has performed with conductors such as Sergiu Commissiona, Andrey Andreev, Rumon Gamba, Daniel Raiskin and Yehudi Menuhin. In 2001, he founded a piano trio called “Dimension” with Rafal Payne and Thomas Carroll. Joo was chosen by Billy Joel to arrange and record his classical piano pieces for the album “Fantasies & Delusions,” which reached the No. 1 spot on the Billboard charts for eighteen straight weeks.

Their PBS special, “Igudesman & Joo: FUNtastic Duo” premiered in November 2014 and has been seen on stations throughout the United States, capturing an avid following in America.

For tickets and more information visit www.paloaltojcc.org/igudesmanjoo or call (650) 223-8664.