Aleksey Igudesman

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.

In cooperation with violinist Sebastian Gürtler, Igudesman has created Tandem, a music and comedy show for two violins and Sebastian, The Cyberconductor for two violins and symphony orchestra. He also works with well-known classical and pop musicians, as well as actors to create special shows that combine music, theatre and comedy. His solo shows Fasten Seat Belts and MAD – Music & Dance regularly feature guests such as Manaho Shimokawa, Kristina Suklar and Leah Zeger.

Igudesman tours the world together with pianist Hyung-ki Joo, as the music and comedy duo Igudesman & Joo. In April 2012, they gave their Carnegie Hall debut in New York City with special surprise guests Joshua Bell and Billy Joel. Excerpts from their hit show A Little Nightmare Music have been watched over 40 million times on YouTube. They also have a show called Big Nightmare Music, which they perform with orchestras around the world, such as the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl in September 2012.

Igudesman is also an actor and film director. His directing debut Noseland [de] , 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.

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.

Aleksey Mikhailovich Igudesman (Russian: Алексей Михайлович Игу́десман ; born 22 February 1973) is a Russian-German violinist, composer, conductor, comedian and actor. He performs in the comedy-musical duo Igudesman & Joo.