Igudes­man & Joo had a won­der­ful time in the U.S. once again and are very much look­ing for­ward to the next con­certs in Sep­tem­ber. Even the crit­ics liked them — there must be some­thing fishy going on! Check it out online: LINK

Critic by JUDITH WHITE For The Saratogian

Alek­sey Igudes­man & Richard Hyung-Ki Joo brought their blend of com­edy and clas­si­cal music to the Spa Lit­tle The­ater inside Saratoga’s Spa State Park Sunday.

There were fresh, young faces both onstage and in the audi­ence Sun­day after­noon at a Saratoga Cham­ber Music Fes­ti­val per­for­mance in Spa Lit­tle Theatre.

Alek­sey Igudes­man & Richard Hyung-Ki Joo were the musi­cians, a vio­lin­ist and a pianist who met while young stu­dents at the pres­ti­gious Yehudi Menuhin School in Eng­land, and went on to estab­lish them­selves in Europe as a comedic clas­si­cal music act.

I shud­der to think how dis­rup­tive this pair’s clown­ing might have been when they were young stu­dents. Regard­less, they man­aged to keep their ado­les­cent humor and tricks, and have pack­aged that with their extra­or­di­nary musi­cal tal­ents in nov­elty routines.

The end result is “A Lit­tle Night­mare Music,” an act that brought real guf­faws from an audi­ence that on this after­noon spanned at least 90 years in age.

Pre-school-aged kids laughed uncon­trol­lably when Joo’s right hand seemed to have been ampu­tated by the piano’s key cover, and the audi­ence was spell­bound when the one handed pianist returned to play Scriabin’s Noc­turne for Left Hand, with sen­si­tiv­ity instead of comedy.

Sim­i­larly, Igudes­man showed his musi­cal capa­bil­ity in sev­eral instances, eas­ily man­ag­ing enor­mously dif­fi­cult passages.

But the real story here is how well this pair use their musi­cal knowl­edge and tal­ents as a link to fun.

The show began with a stan­dard cell phone melody inter­rupt­ing Igudes­man and Joo’s play­ing of the “Spring Sonata.” The two then incor­po­rated the ring­tone as a theme in the sonata, and like all good com­edy, the joke had a life of its own through­out the show.

Igudes­man did some mar­velous sound effects while tun­ing his instru­ment, and Joo lost his patience while try­ing to fit in prac­tice time on a credit card-operated Steinway.

Together with a broom and Igudesman’s vio­lin, the pair became River­dancers, their step danc­ing a hoot.

Joo sang a falsetto “All By Myself” and “She’s Got a Ticket to Ride” into the har­monies of another sonata, and Igudes­man used his vio­lin bow in unimag­in­able ways.

One of the best moments by the pair was a clever musi­cal recap of the show, played as a finale. Audi­ence mem­ory required noth­ing more than a cou­ple of bars of music, or a ges­ture or word, to renew the musi­cal jokes, which included the ring­tone theme.

The duo were called back for sev­eral encores at the close of the 90-minute show.