Aleksey Mikhailovich Igudesman is a Russian-German violinist, composer, conductor, comedian and actor. He performs in the comedy-musical duo Igudesman & Joo.
Biography
Igudesman was born in Leningrad, in what was then the Soviet Union, to a musical Jewish family. At the age of 6 he and his family immigrated to Germany. At the age of 12 he was accepted at the Yehudi Menuhin School in England. From 1989 to 1998 he studied violin with Boris Kuschnir at the Vienna Conservatory. Igudesman has several books published by Universal Edition, including Style Workout, The Catscratchbook and Pigs Can Fly, as well as violin duet books Klezmer & More, Celtic & More, Latin & More and Asia & More. He 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. Igudesman's compositions have been performed worldwide by soloists, ensembles and orchestras, often with Igudesman as a solo violinist and conductor, including New York Philharmonic, Vienna Symphony, Kremerata Baltica, Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, Vorarlberg Symphony Orchestra, Virtuosi Italiani, Tonkünstler Orchestra, Belgrade Symphony Orchestra, Camerata Ducale and many others. In a project named Violins of the World, Igudesman has performed his violin duets with Gidon Kremer, Julian Rachlin, Janine Jansen, Vadim Repin, Pavel Vernikov and Alexandra Soumm. Igudesman's poems have been recited by Roger Moore. With his string trio Trilogy, he has given concerts all over the world, as well as recording several CDs for Sony BMG. Igudesman has written for and performed as a soloist on several movie soundtracks and has worked closely with Academy Award-winning film composer Hans Zimmer on numerous movies, such as Sherlock Holmes, which received an Oscar nomination for the Best Original Score. The soundtrack received critical acclaim for its use of several strange instruments, the Experibass, and incorporated sounds of "hideous things being done to a piano". Igudesman has co-written the soundtrack for Jealous of the Birds with Hans Zimmer, which won the Grand Prize for Best Original Score in the Rhode Island International Film Festival. In 2016, Igudesman appeared alongside Hans Zimmer as a soloist on his world tour. Igudesman is also an actor and film director. His directing debut , a feature-length mockumentary about classical musicians such as Julian Rachlin and Mischa Maisky and actors John Malkovich and Roger Moore, premiered at the Transylvanian International Film Festival in Romania in June 2012, and won "Most Entertaining Documentary" at DocMiami 2012 and has had a cinematic release in Germany. Igudesman stars in an Austrian TV series, broadcast by ORF, entitled Du Kunst mich, where he features talents from the fields of music, dance, photography and fashion.
