Some strings attached: Isabel Hagen combines comedy and viola in Chatter performances

Comedy and classical music seem like odd bedfellows.

But Isabel Hagen moved from Juilliard to stand-up, with strings attached.

A “Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon” veteran, Hagen will perform in both Santa Fe and Albuquerque on Saturday, Jan. 13, and Sunday, Jan. 14, as part of Chatter North and Chatter Sunday. She’ll intersperse viola vignettes (mostly Bach) with comic quips and perform with three Chatter musicians.

Hagen turned to comedy after awakening with a shooting pain in her wrist at the fine arts school. A physical therapist told her to take two months off from playing. The break came as something of a relief for a musical prodigy who had begun to experience crippling performance anxiety.

It was during that downtime that she began performing stand-up in New York clubs. George Carlin was a major influence. In comedy, her trembling hands never derailed her jokes.

“I thought, ‘What if I put them next to each other, and maybe the humor would come in the juxtaposition,’ ” she said in a telephone interview from New York.

Both her father and her older brother were musicians.

“I was a quiet, awkward kid,” Hagen said, “and music gave me a group of friends.”

She started on the violin at 5 before switching to the larger viola. Violists were something of a rarity, so she got gigs.

She had always loved comedy and did impressions for her family.

Some strings attached: Isabel Hagen combines comedy and viola in Chatter performances

“There’s a big tradition of viola jokes in the symphony,” she added. “It’s kind of like the dumb blonde.”

She memorized all of them.

After she graduated in 2015 and began a career as a freelance violist — a pursuit that has included broadcast performances with the likes of Ed Sheeran and Phoebe Bridgers — she became a regular of New York’s open-mic circuit. Having previously performed on “The Tonight Show” as an accompanying musician, Hagen returned as a stand-up with sets in 2020 and 2022. Along the way, she wrote, directed and starred in the web series “IS A VIOLIST,” which she hopes to shoot as a feature film later this year.

She says she doesn’t miss her classical career.

“The adrenaline and the shaking is still there,” she acknowledged. “But I can tell jokes with my hands shaking. With comedy, I know the adrenaline will give me energy.”