“Concertgoers at the New York Philharmonic Tuesday night did not have to be musicologists to work out that the marimba was not part of the famous work,” Kari Huus reports for MSNBC. “Conductor Alan Gilbert halted the performance of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony when the offending iPhone ringtone sounded — and persisted.”
“Just minutes from the end of the hour and a half-long piece, Gilbert turned to the phone’s owner, seated close to the front of Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall in New York City, according to an eyewitness account published by ‘Superconductor’ blogger Paul Pelkonen,” Huus reports. “The symphony ends incredibly quietly so there was literally no way that we could go on, Gilbert told NBC News. ‘So I stopped the music and I asked the general vicinity where the sound was coming from ‘please turn off your cellphone.’ And I had to ask several times.'”
Huus reports, “In the ensuing pause, some in the audience reportedly called for blood, shouting: ‘Kick him out!’ and ‘$1,000 fine!’ the witness recounted. Gilbert quietly employed shame until the offender — described as an elderly man by another blogger — confirmed that the phone was off.”
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MacDailyNews Take: People should learn how to use their iPhone’s five whole buttons before taking it out in public.
