Ingudesman & Joo are the John Belushis of the classical music scene. Insanely talented, they've put their gifts to theoretically baser uses; finding semi-crass jokes in the white lace and vest world of classical performance. Their stuff is funny; a "big hands" performance of Rachmaninov using wooden sticks to span the enormous octave reach required; a performance of Mozart disrupted by New World agonizing about how the music hasn't opened their chakras, resulting in bizarre modulations when one note is changed; a piano that morphs into a fee-for-service instrument with too little time on the clock. The audience laughs; at first genuinely, and towards the end, exhausted by the stream of sophomoric wit, a bit dutifully. But they laugh primarily because of their complete willingness to take absolutely nothing seriously, including themselves, and because, well, they're just THAT good ...
An unfortunate bit is that Berklee scheduled a downstairs rehearsal hall for a funk band, and they insisted on going forward with this discordant noise in the middle of Igudesman & Joo's performance. For an institution that reveres music and encourages and teaches young musicians, this was a very, very bad lesson to teach. Berklee had a lot of nerve to have audience members sit with this near-constant distraction.