by Jarrett Hoffman
My recent conversation with pianist Hyung-ki Joo began with some pushback — beginning when I said that it was exciting to talk to him. “Well, you don’t know that,” he joked. “You haven’t talked to me yet.”
A sound argument. So I explained that I was excited about the opportunity to speak to someone like him: a musician who is also a comedian.
He replied that although he was flattered, he and violinist Aleksey Igudesman — who together are Igudesman & Joo, a musical-comedic duo that will perform in Hanna Theatre at Playhouse Square on Thursday, July 28 at 7:30 pm as part of Piano Cleveland’s PianoDays festival — don’t really think of themselves as comedians.