Orchestra della Toscana – Carnival Concert 2024 – Igudesman & Joo

About the Event

Experience classical music like never before in this astonishing performance at Florence's remarkable Teatro Verdi.

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.

Teatro Verdi

Teatro Verdi is a theatre established in Florence in 1854, in the street 'Via Giuseppe Verdi'. Originally known as Teatro Pagliano, the theatre became one of the most popular theatres in Tuscany, welcoming all kinds of shows, as well as classical performances with the arrival of the Orchestra della Toscana. The largest Italian‐style theatre in the region, the building was inaugurated with a performance of Verdi´s masterpiece, 'Rigoletto', and was renamed in 1901 to honour the composer. Home to the Orchestra della Toscana, the theatre now combines a vivid classical program with theatre seasons, as well as rock and pop performances..

Cast / Production

IGUDESMAN & JOO violin and piano
Rachmaninoff Will Survive