ORT | Carnival Concert

Tuesday, February 13, 9pm, at Teatro Verdi in Firenze, the concert featuring Aleksey Igudesman (violin) and Hyung-ki Joo (piano).

Can you laugh at classical music, with classical music? 
Yes, if you find yourself watching Aleksey Igudesman (who plays a priceless Santo Serafino violin of 1717), and Hyung-ki Joo, piano, a hilarious blend of popular culture, comedy and, indeed, classical notes. 

Their YouTube videos have reached 50 million hits. Their shows turn out just as well both in concert halls and in front of 18,000 fans in a stadium. They met as children in the classrooms of the Yehudi Menuhin School, in Great Britain, and soon became best friends, companions in theatrical-musical adventures, cultivating together the dream of making classical music accessible to an ever-wider audience. For twenty years they have been making people laugh with their crazy musical shows, often featuring classical stars, cinema and pop-rock legends, such as Roger Moore and Gidon Kremer, Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees and John Malkovich, the Simple Minds and Viktoria Mullova, Yuja Wang and Midge Ure of Ultravox. 

The show they are bringing to the ORT, involving the instrumentalists in their bewildering sketches, is a comical tribute to Sergej Rachmaninov on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of his birth, celebrated in 2023.