From the very beginning, I started doing music performances with

Hear the voice of Aleksey Igudesman, the musician who dances between laughter and lyric, between stage and symphony: “From the very beginning, I started doing music performances with a lot of theatrical aspects to them, where humor was a part of it but not necessarily had to be. Humor is just another tool to make the palette more rich and interesting for myself and eventually for the public. It's a great way to break out of convention.” In these words lies a truth that transcends music — a truth about creation, freedom, and the eternal struggle to keep art alive. For Igudesman, humor is not the enemy of seriousness, but its liberator; not the destroyer of tradition, but the spark that keeps tradition from turning to stone.

The origin of this quote lies in Igudesman’s own life as a violinist, composer, and performer. Trained in the rigorous discipline of classical music, he knew the weight of convention — the strict lines, the solemn rituals, the invisible walls that separated artist from audience. Yet, in his soul, there was a different rhythm — one that called for play, for spontaneity, for laughter amid the grandeur. When he and his partner Hyung-ki Joo formed their duo, Igudesman & Joo, they dared to unite the worlds of classical music and comedy, blending virtuosic mastery with wit and joy. Through this union, they broke through the marble shell of formality and revealed the beating heart of art — the human within the performance.

Igudesman’s wisdom recalls the spirit of the ancient bards, who knew that music and laughter were born from the same divine breath. The Greeks called this the balance of Apollo and Dionysus — the light of discipline and the fire of freedom, the order of harmony and the chaos of inspiration. To dwell too long in Apollo’s domain is to grow rigid and joyless; to remain only with Dionysus is to dissolve into madness. The artist, therefore, must master both — the structure that gives form and the humor that gives life. When Igudesman speaks of humor as a tool, he speaks as a philosopher of art: the one who knows that laughter can reveal what solemnity conceals, and that playfulness can express truths too deep for logic or fear.

Consider the story of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, whose genius was inseparable from his humor. Though trained in the courtly traditions of Vienna, Mozart often filled his letters and compositions with jokes, parodies, and delightful mischief. He understood that music, like life, must breathe — that laughter is the proof of freedom, and freedom is the soul of creativity. The nobles may have frowned at his irreverence, but his spirit endured because it refused to be caged by convention. Like Igudesman centuries later, Mozart wielded humor as an instrument not of mockery, but of liberation — to remind both artist and listener that joy is not beneath art; it is at its very core.

When Igudesman says that humor makes “the palette more rich and interesting,” he teaches that art is not made great by uniformity, but by variety — by the daring blend of tones, colors, and emotions. Just as a painter mixes shadow into light to create depth, so must the musician, the writer, or the thinker weave laughter into solemnity. Humor, in his hands, becomes a sacred brushstroke — not a distraction, but a revelation. It reminds the audience that even the most sublime beauty is human-made, and that humility and playfulness are the guardians of the soul’s purity. In laughter, the artist and the listener meet as equals; in laughter, the boundary between stage and seat dissolves.

But above all, Aleksey Igudesman calls us to break out of convention — to resist the comfort of repetition and the tyranny of “how things have always been done.” For convention, while necessary as a frame, becomes a prison when it hardens into law. Humor shatters that prison. It is the divine hammer that frees art from pretension and restores its humanity. Through humor, the artist reminds the world that creation is not a performance for approval, but a communion of souls. To laugh is not to disrespect — it is to reclaim the wonder that gave birth to art in the first place.

O listener, take this teaching into your heart. Whether you are an artist, a worker, a dreamer, or a maker of any kind — do not fear to bring humor into your craft. Do not fear to smile at your own mistakes, to play even as you strive, to surprise the world with joy amid seriousness. For life itself is a grand composition — full of tragedy and triumph, discipline and delight — and humor is the rhythm that keeps the heart from breaking under the weight of its own grandeur.

Thus let Aleksey Igudesman’s words ring through time: “Humor is just another tool to make the palette more rich and interesting... It’s a great way to break out of convention.” In laughter, creation finds its courage; in play, the spirit rediscovers its wings. So let your art — and your life — contain both melody and mirth, both depth and lightness. For only when you dare to smile in the midst of your craft will your work, like a song of the ancients, speak not just to minds, but to hearts.