Isabel Hagen stand-up (TV debut)

Isabel Hagen is a stand-up comedian and classically trained violist based in New York. She started stand-up right after earning her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in viola performance from the Juilliard School. Isabel has worked with artists such as Björk, Max Richter and Steve Reich, and played in the orchestra for Broadway productions including Les Misérables and Fiddler on the Roof. And as a comic, she has been featured on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and as a New Face of Comedy at the Just for Laughs festival in Montréal.

We chatted about following an unconventional path after music college, coping with performance anxiety, and learning to be a beginner again.

Let’s kick off with a quick-fire round...

Early bird or night owl? Early bird, even though that's a terrible thing for a comedian
Dog or cat person? I've never had either but I have a hunch that I'm a cat person
Most used emoji? 🤷‍♀️
Any new lockdown hobbies? Meditation and reality TV
Three artists you’re listening to at the moment? Ólafur Arnalds, The Wailin' Jennys and Dustin O'Halloran

Can you introduce yourself to my readers?

I'm a stand up comedian and also a classically trained violist. For most of my life I thought my career would be as a violist, and then I switched over to stand up comedy. For about four years, I pursued them totally separately. I did stand up and then I would go do a viola gig and run from one to the other. I've just started combining them in my act.

How did combining the two things come about?

I would often show up to the comedy club with my viola on my back, but I would never play it, and then eventually I was like “what if I just took it out on stage and juxtapose the two things?”.

Which label feels like it fits you better?

Music will always be a part of what I do but the term comedian feels more right to me. I don't feel as inspired to just play music anymore. For whatever reason, maybe burnout or just where my excitement is, where my heart races more, is when I think about making people laugh, whether that's with music or with telling jokes.

It’s really nice to see your unconventional path after music college. Did you have to overcome any mental blocks to go off the beaten track, or fight other people’s expectations of what you should do?

Yeah, expectations a bit. I knew I was interested in comedy way before I started pursuing it. Once I opened up to a teacher at Juilliard about it, they were very encouraging, but I just felt pressure to hide that part of myself in the way that a lot of people feel pressure to hide parts of themselves. I thought I’d better make the music thing work, but I don’t have the precision to be a soloist in the traditional way, and I hate playing in orchestra. Every time I'm in orchestra rehearsal, I look at the clock and wait for the rehearsal to end, so if I played in an orchestra full time I’d just be waiting for my life to end. Chamber music is another option. I had a quartet that I loved, but when it fell apart I was ready for something different, and so it was just a matter of accepting that part of myself. Once I did, and started dabbling at open mics, I was happy in a way that I never felt before. It's like when you find the right partner or something, it's just this extra joy.

How did you find being a beginner again?

It's been really nice because it's a reminder that I can get better at something. I know so many classical musicians who are so good at what they do, but you're improving at such incremental levels when you're at that level so you're like, "Am I even good? What am I even doing?”. Then when you're really bad at something and then you get not bad at it you're like "Wow, look at me!". It reminded me that I could keep practising viola and getting better.

It must be different being a beginner now rather than when you were a child.

I have such low self-esteem surrounding viola because of years of rejection in competition with others, and pursuing it at a time when I was also figuring out who I was in my teens, so it’s all wrapped up in this unhealthy mental space. Whereas comedy was my thing I started in my 20s when I was a little more stable.

I’ve heard you talk a bit about performance anxiety on your podcast Good Timing. How has that has affected you?

I dealt with so much performance anxiety that limited me at music college, especially as a soloist, because my bow can’t be shaking. I would take beta blockers but it felt like a band aid. With comedy, the shaking felt like an asset because it adds to a nervous persona that just felt like me, but it didn’t screw up the performance. Your hands don’t have to be precise in comedy, which is very liberating.

It seems extraordinarily brave to me to choose a career with two performance jobs, if performance anxiety is something you face. You must be living an adrenaline rollercoaster!

Yeah, I don't know if it's masochism, or what. When I would perform on viola it’s not that I’m actually nervous, worrying about messing up, but my body had an intense fight or flight syndrome. It was frustrating because it felt like my body was not letting me do it (even though of course it’s a mental thing). I always knew I loved performing, but I was so frustrated by the shaking getting in the way, so when I found comedy, I was just so excited to be able to perform in a new way.

Would you say it's a thing of the past, or that it just doesn't block you in the same way anymore?

It's still hit or miss. I still feel my hands shaking when I'm doing stand up. I think it was a double down effect with viola because I became nervous that I would be nervous, knowing that the shaking would mess me up. In comedy, I never worry about my hands shaking, I just hope they laugh. When I take out my viola during a comedy set, I’ve usually been on stage for enough time that I’m warmed up and don’t feel shaky anymore. But I’m playing a concert with a quartet in a few days and I’m still nervous that I’ll be nervous.

Do you think that taking your viola on stage in a comedy setting has helped with the music or are they quite compartmentalised in your mind?

I think it's helped a little bit. At music school you don't normally get that many practice performances unless you set it up yourself. You have your one recital a semester and maybe a competition, so those moments are so big. With comedy, you have to practise on a stage in front of an audience, so I’m performing two or three times a night for weeks. The sheer repetition of getting on a stage has helped my viola playing in turn because it’s just another performance, no big deal.

As a practice, comedy seems to be the opposite to classical music in many ways – you try out new material, presenting to an audience when it’s still a work in progress, see what works and hone it or bin it. Whereas in classical music you perfect it before presenting the finished product. How do you find that shift?

You're right: with comedy, unless someone is taping an album or a special, what you're seeing on a stage is always in progress. The comedian’s always listening back and thinking “Is that the funniest way to say it? They didn't laugh at this one moment”. And you as an audience member might not even realise that they're considering one moment a failure, but to them, it's a constant like ebb and flow. It’s a much messier process.

Do you think there’s any way we could incorporate this more into the classical music process, and would that even work?

It would be good to treat it as we're all always in progress. So, at least mentally if you're a classical performer, maybe that would take some of the burden off. Sure, maybe there are critics and people who would not like that something was a little sloppy, but so what? I just love when someone on stage is such a committed performer and that means so much more to me than like if they nailed a certain passage. Of course, there's excitement in the precision sometimes, like a violinist nailing all the acrobatics in the high register of their instrument, but it's tough.

Isabel Hagen’s performance on Max Richter’s NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

I wonder if this goes hand in hand with putting on concerts in more casual settings.

I’m a big fan of the casual setting for classical music because it puts the performance in a context of “Wow, isn't this incredible?”. The concert hall kind of takes away just how incredible classical music is and the artistry because it's framed in a way that it must be great. Whereas if it's in your living room, you're like, “Wow, they're playing a violin and they're really good”. And you feel a little more connected to just how amazing the artform is.

The stakes must feel pretty high in comedy – you could just go on stage, as a ‘soloist’, and have no control over whether you bomb. And you have probably know almost straight away if it’s not going well. Do you ever have this in music, or does it always feel more predictable?

You play. They clap. People tell you: good job and you're like: was it good? It's a lot more predictable in terms of the audience reaction and what's going to happen, especially in orchestral playing when you're a small part of a bigger thing. You have to find the satisfaction in yourself for that, which can be a very spiritually empowering thing. Being a worker among workers, which is very honourable, and you’re creating something beautiful together. There'd have to be some huge thing to go wrong for anything to really be steered off course.

When performing as a soloist, in whichever artform, I imagine you could feel reliant on the validation of the audience, so you’re walking a tightrope in terms of your self esteem and confidence. Do you have any techniques for distancing yourself from that?

Mostly just repetition. In comedy, part of the benefit of going up on stage so often is that if you have a bad set, you know that a better set is around the corner usually. It never hurts less, but you just know it's gonna be okay. Any comedian will tell you that they'll headline a big packed club one night and then do another show the next night and be like “Do I even have any jokes? Am I not good at comedy?”. It's just so crowd dependent and such a weird, weird art form.

Before you go, I just wanted to say that I find your violist apology video way too funny. A really fun marketing campaign by the American Viola Society! Respectfully poking fun at the genre makes it seem way more accessible than endlessly telling people how accessible it is.

There's new stuff in classical music, of course, and really interesting things, but it's so antiquated and it is kind of funny. We take ourselves too seriously in a lot of situations. And to me it doesn't detract from the beauty of it, if we're also just laughing at it.

Visit Isabel Hagen’s website to find her next stand-up gig, or visit her YouTube channel to watch her video series IS A VIOLIST.

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Interview: Isabel Hagen