There's a million people who can go out and play the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto brilliantly, but we're the only ones who can do 'A Little Nightmare Music.'
— Aleksey Igudesman
Our first show, 'A Little Nightmare Music,' encompasses a lot of zany humor with beautiful classical music.
Combining music, theater and comedy is a new and broader form of expression. In certain combinations you can make people laugh one moment, cry the next, and then be astounded by the beauty of the music.
It is interesting that our biggest fans are the greatest names of the classical music scene, such as Julian Rachlin, Janine Jansen, Mischa Maisky and Gidon Kremer. They even make guest appearances in our concerts occasionally.
I do use an electric violin. Actually, my regular electric violin, which I sometimes use, is by Ned Steinburger.
Audiences respond in entirely different ways. One thing is unanimous - music binds us altogether.
Classical music is something that we're very passionate about, but we always thought it was presented in a stuffy way.
For me, personally, the most interesting music comes from the popular sector - from film and pop music - since contemporary classical music got stuck and went into directions where it lost a lot of the public by over-intellectualizing.
From the very beginning, I started doing music performances with a lot of theatrical aspects to them, where humor was a part of it but not necessarily had to be. Humor is just another tool to make the palette more rich and interesting for myself and eventually for the public. It's a great way to break out of convention.
The idea of a musical comedy was something we had had in mind for many years, but the project 'Igudesman & Joo: A Little Nightmare Music' has a history that goes back five years. I can say that this is the most successful project that we have ever done.
Instruments are a phenomenal investment, especially violins and violas and celli, because the value really doesn't go down, and it just rises up at incredible speed and has done, and I believe will continue to do so, because these rare instruments are not getting more. They are getting less and less through the years.
We've always dreamt of a TV series and working in film. When we first sat down to seriously write 'A Little Nightmare Music,' to write something for TV was our original inspiration. But all the stuff we were writing down is not going to work on stage. We had to rewrite it so it would work on the stage.
I was able to turn to classical music many people, who saw my programs live and on YouTube, and this is one of the nicest achievements I can have.
We are fans of Mozart and Beethoven, as well 'South Park' and Borat. We believe that we can attract many people who eschew the serious ambiance of concert halls and don't go to classical music concerts because of such reasons. However, there is a 'serious humor' on the stage: funny and ridiculous. That is important!
We developed our own type of Igudesman and Joo electric violin, let's say, and funny enough, the shape of it was developed by the head technician of Steinway. It's actually an electric violin, which is made from the stick that holds up the piano lid.
We're passionate musicians, but we felt classical concerts were more like a funeral because nobody talked and everybody was dressed so conservatively. We thought that's kind of strange, because music is full of life! We thought we could break through that barrier with theater and comedy elements.
