Report: iPhone Ringing Stops New York Philharmonic Performance Of The Mahler Ninth
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) - It certainly wasn't music to the ears of New York Philharmonic Music Director Alan Gilbert.
Tuesday night's New York Philharmonic performance of the Mahler Ninth was cut short by Gilbert, according to a report on the blog, Superconductor.
According to the article, an iPhone went off repeatedly in the front rows during the fourth movement of Mahler's final completed symphony at Avery Fisher Hall.
"Mr. Gilbert was visibly annoyed by the persistent ring-tone, so much that he quietly cut the orchestra," a concert-goer and music student Kyra Sims, reports. She explained to Superconductor 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, according to Sims.
"Fine, we'll wait," Mr. Gilbert said, according to the report.
As you can imagine, audience members weren't happy. Someone shouted, "Thousand dollar fine," followed by "Kick Him Out," Sims said.
House security did not intervene or remove the offender. After the ringing stopped, Gilbert is said to have asked the man if he turned off his phone.
The man nodded and shook his head when asked if it would not go off again.
Gilbert then apologized to the audience and explained that he normally ignores such disturbances, but this one was so egregious, he couldn't.
He then said the three words that were music to the audience's ears: "We'll start again."
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