Biography
Aleksey Igudesman is known as a violinist, but has also established himself as a composer, conductor, actor, director and producer. He was born in St. Petersburg, Russia and at the age of 12 he was accepted to the prestigious Yehudi Menuhin School in England. He then studied violin with Boris Kuschnir at the Vienna Conservatory.
Aleksey's music, published by Universal Edition and his compositions have been performed worldwide by soloists, ensembles and orchestras, often with him as a solo violinist and conductor.
He performs his violin duets in the project Violins of the World, in which his poems are recited by Sir Roger Moore.
Igudesman writes, arranges and records film music, often collaborating with the Academy Award winning film composer, Hans Zimmer. Igudesman has composed, arranged and played on The Road to El Dorado, Spanglish and Sherlock Holmes, which was nominated for Best Original Score at the Academy Awards in 2010. Igudesman co-wrote the music for Jealous of the Birds with Zimmer. It premiered in 2011 at the Rhode Island Film Festival, where it won the Grand Prize for the Best Original Score. Igudesman was part of the writing team on Rango, Inception and has also written and performed on Sherlock Holmes 2: A Game of Shadows, Madagascar 3, The Lone Ranger, 300: Rise of an Empire, Inferno and Boss Baby 2.
Igudesman has written the music for numerous documentaries, such as Noseland, Wachau, Schönbrunn, Salzburg and Maria Theresia, as well as Austria's heritage for the world 2022.
Together with the internationally acclaimed pianist Hyung-ki Joo, he appears as Igudesman & Joo. Their show A Little Nightmare Music has received much acclaim by critics and audiences alike and been watched on YouTube over 20 million times, to date. They often perform with Gidon Kremer, Julian Rachlin, Janine Jansen, Viktoria Mullova, Emanuel Ax, John Malkovich among many others. In 2009 Igudesman & Joo toured Germany, Holland and Belgium as part of the Night of the Proms, appearing in front of half a million people. They also have a show with symphony and chamber orchestras, called BIG Nightmare Music.
Aleksey Igudesman plays a Santo Serafin 1717 violin, kindly loaned to him by Erste Bank.
