Gothamist/iPhone Ringtone Brings New York Philharmonic To A Dead Stop [View all]

[markpkessinger]

I wish more performers had the stones to do this!

[font size=4]iPhone Ringtone Brings New York Philharmonic To A Dead Stop[/font][/h2]



Don't forget to turn off your phone when you go to the New York Philharmonic...because if it starts ringing they will stop the show. No, really! At last night's performance of Mahler's Ninth, a not-so-gentleman's iPhone (using the "marimba" ringtone) went off multiple times during the piece's final movement. Finally—just 13 bars before the end of the score—Music Director Alan Gilbert lost it and cut the orchestra:

"Mr. Gilbert was visibly annoyed by the persistent ring-tone, so much that he quietly cut the orchestra," the concert-goer reports. She related how the orchestra's music director turned on the podium towards the offender. The pause lasted a good "three or four minutes. It might have been two. It seemed long."

Mr. Gilbert asked the man, sitting in front of the concert-master: "Are you finished?" The man didn't respond.

"Fine, we'll wait," Mr. Gilbert said.

Read full article at: http://gothamist.com/2012/01/11/iphone_brings_new_york_philharmonic.php