“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.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: People should learn how to use their iPhone’s five whole buttons before taking it out in public.
Honestly that IS rude to not mute your cell at a place like that.
Watch the pc crowd blame apple for making them stop now…
And just how did anyone determine that it was specifically an iPhone and not some other brand?
It played “marimba”. It’s the default ringtone for the iPhone.
Coming soon: “It just works. Except when you don’t want it to. Introducing iPolite situational auto-configuration for your iPhone… and the world around you.”
I llke iPolite!
They should have beaten the dude with a Tuba.
I think they did one better. They had Rosie O’Donnell sit on him.
No place for old men.
At a symphony? You’re right, they should be in a mosh pit where they belong.
Thanks to his iPhone, the guy can say he not only performed with the New York Philharmonic, but took a solo.
Tpo funny!
Why must ringtones continue to play while people search their purses or climb over others to head for the exit? Why not just a simple chime and then quiet?
I’m confident that the Apple design team applied the UI principle that “telephone ring” = “distant + sound + signal” should act as a beacon for the period of time required to locate the ringing phone inside my purse three rooms away from where I’m sitting now. If it’s in the pocket of a guy in a chair, that principle fails.
Apple could employ the accelerometer to have the phone stop ringing when it is jarred as in tapped by the hand.
An excellent suggestion. I wonder if there’s an app for that.
You people that know electrons well, can they jamb the space so this cannot happen?
No good, they can be in two places at once.
Well, like the cat can be either alive or dead, I guess.
Pretty soon you’ll start talking about multi-universes.
Riff Raff,
Hopefully not since it is referred to as a multiverse, or even metaverse. But “uni” means one…
Yes, I should have looked at what I wrote!
My students get a day off and unexcused absence for a cell phone going off in class. It’s just plain thoughtlessness. Getting called out by the conductor in front of a whole bunch of irritated music lovers – ouch! Embarrassing.
My guess is that it was a forgotten alarm that was ringing. Silenced iPhones still have audible alarms. I found this out while sitting in the second row of a college lecture one day. Not fun.
Turns out the guy was a Blackberry user who’d just got switched. He didn’t even know phones had alarms on them. That’s what you get for not having a real phone before!
Oh, and Mahler’s 9th? Near the end? That piece is transcendent, and it takes all that time to get to this beautiful, almost soundless finish. I’d have killed the guy myself if I’d been there and he ruined that moment.
I hope they started over.
they did. Gilbert apparently started from Rehearsal 118 (where it’s very loud with trombones etc) and finished the piece.
I go to the opera a lot, and we always get this. I wish they’d be more emphatic about turning off devices, and even display not only a warning, but thorough directions for the major phone types.
What most people don’t realize is that phones can still go off audibly not only when set to vibrate, but also when completely turned off. You have to make sure no alarm is set for the time of the performance, because your phone may turn on and make noise.
It wouldn’t do to precede a solemn performance with an airline-hostess presentation, and placing all that info in the programme would rob the house of ad revenue. A sign at the loge doorway would be jarring. Given the highbrow nature of the event, a reasonable expectation of audience protocol should normally suffice.
“Siri, complete silence.”
“phones can still go off audibly not only when set to vibrate, but also when completely turned off”
Wrong. Off is off.
Geeze, people. Yes, an unfortunate event, but people are human. They make mistakes. This guy forgot to silence his phone. And just because he is “elderly” does not mean he should stay out of public social events. Man. Ruthless crowd here today (some of the comments anyway).
MacDailyNews Take: People should learn how to use their iPhone’s five whole buttons before taking it out in public.
It was an alarm and not a phone call the buttons wouldn’t help.
Phones are amazing things, but I’ve heard the Nokia ring during many concerts. It’s a problem with no great solution. Especially if you go to lots of concerts you may neglect to check that your ringer is off.
I saw a concert where a musician’s phone rang in their pocket. could be worse!
Well, here is the full story.
The guy is a 20-year subscriber to the NY Phil. He personally knows several musicians. His company just replaced all blackberries with iPhones. He did what everyone does at Avery Fischer Hall (where NY Phil plays) before the performance — he turned off his iPhone — not just put it on silent, but turned off completely (they play a reminder announcement from Alec Baldwin). Then, in the middle of the performance, an alarm, which he didn’t even realise that was set, started going. He was obviously sure it wasn’t his phone, since his was turned OFF. Eventually, it became obvious (when Gilbert stopped the performance and everyone looked at him) that his phone WAS in fact making this noise. It took him a while to figure out how to dismiss this alarm, and he still had no clue how did the phantom iPhone make noise while off.
On the ride home, his wife poked around the phone and found out that the alarm was set.
The next day, the Philharmonic contacted him (they found his number from the seat he was in — 20 year subscriber, remember) and politely asked not to do the same thing again. He asked them to let him personally apologise to Gilbert. They did, he did, it made the 6 o’clock news in NYC.
The alarm will sound even if the phone is turned off? Even I didn’t know that.
Sorry, I call bunk. Just tested it on my own iPhone. If the phone is actually off (slide the red slider to turn off) then no alarms will sound. If the screen is off (press the button on the top right) then alarms will sound because the phone is still on, the screen is the only thing that is off.
If the gentleman was new to the iPhone I expect he wouldn’t have known this, I hope he learns it now. If you truly want your iPhone off you need to press the top right button until the red slider appears then slide the slider and it will truly be off and no alarms will go off until you turn it back on.
Correct. Alarms can NOT sound if the phone is OFF. If they could, the phone wouldn’t be off!
find my iphone’s alarm will though!
Nope. Not even that. If the phone is off, it can’t be found and the “found phone” sound will not play BECAUSE IT’S OFF!!
I sit corrected.
http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/13/10150284-the-back-story-why-the-marimba-interrupted-mahlers-ninth
if you READ the story he did what 99% of us do, he flipped the mute switch and went to the concert, he did not turn it all the way off.
he had an ALARM that went off at the end of the show.
I never turn my iPhone off, just mute when needed.
and YES any alarm/timer etc WILL sound if the iPhone is on mute. only completely off is silent.
and it was also pointed out he had just switched to the iPhone a few days earlier.
There is a Sounds setting in iOS 5, that is under Ringer and Alerts, that says “Change with Buttons”. It’s an On/Off switch. If it’s ON, the alert sounds should mute if you mute the sounds in general. And of course you also need to switch to vibrate mode….. Or else turn off your phone.
The most important point about this story (at least for us here) is that his company just switched from Blackberry to iPhone! For that reason alone, the guy deserved all the breaks he could get from this crowd (and being a musician, I detest cellphone noise in the audience during performances).
“Siri, shut my phone up!” wonder if that would have worked?
I just wish Apple could find a way to not let assholes be able to buy the iPhone…..
How could they screen for that I wonder?
how about, if you’ve ever commented on youtube you don’t get an iPhone?
That’s why home education is very important. Nowadays, there are lots of disfunctional families. No respect whatsoever. i have started to hate young people who age 20-30s. Most disrespect thing is happened in social life. So I try to stay away from them as quickly as possible. This country will be ruined or already done.
Oh my God, the end of Mahler’s 9th. There could not be a worse time. Ever.
Pssstttt…at the moment of orgasm, or perhaps your lover’s orgasm???
That would be nothing compared to the ending of Mahler’s Ninth.
Then again, I’ve been known to compare Mahler’s symphonies to sexual experiences.
Good for the conductor!
If more people were called out on their rudeness perhaps there would be a lot less of it!
Some people are far too inconsiderate and obviously too stupid to own an iPhone! What an asshole.
Some people are assholes for criticising someone new to a device who made a genuine mistake.
‘To err is human, to forgive, Devine’
He made an error, based on his inexperience with a new phone. A reasonable person would give him a break, based on this information.
You are obviously not a reasonable person, but an asshole.
I blame Apple. The mute should mute alarms also. That it does not is very counter to Apples usual intuitive guidelines.