Classical Classroom, Episode 192: The Hilarious History of Classical Music with Igudesman and Joo

Classical Classroom

Aleksey Igudesman and Hyung-ki Joo make up the classical music comedy duo, Igudesman and Joo. And though they will crack you up with their performances (which you can watch on their YouTube channel along with millions of other viewers), when they talk about why they do what they do, the two musicians become surprisingly serious. They firmly believe that classical music was always meant to be fun. In this episode, they talk about the history of humor in classical music (even Beethoven was funny!), the forces that conspired to make it stuffy, and what they're doing to change that, including their upcoming performance, The Clone, with Yuja Wang.

Music in this episode:

Special thanks to Todd Reynolds for his music, Taskforce: Farmlab from Outerbourough.