"Marimba" ringtone halts NY Philharmonic
CBS Interactive
NEW YORK - It's the dreaded sound at any live performance: a ringing cellphone.
That's what happened Tuesday night at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall during the final movement of Gustav Mahler's Ninth Symphony by the New York Philharmonic. Maestro Alan Gilbert stopped the orchestra until the phone was silenced.
The Wall Street Journal reports that when an iPhone's distinctive "Marimba" ringtone initially went off, Gilbert turned his head to signal his displeasure. But the ringing from the first row persisted and minutes went by.
Gilbert asked that the offending noise be turned off and finally stopped the orchestra until it was. The audience gasped. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal Wednesday, Gilbert claimed the ringtone ruined his concentration during the symphony's "most intense, most sublime, most emotional place."
The man who owned the cell phone tried to ignore the noise, but eventually silenced what many think was an alarm he forgot to turn off.
"I had to ask him many times," Gilbert told the Wall Street Journal. "It was bizarre. Maybe he was just so mortified that he just shut down and was paralyzed." Though the Philharmonic refused to identify the man, many said he was a regular subscriber.
Gilbert apologized to the audience for the disruption, and was greeted with applause.
The Philharmonic said it was the first time the music director had ever interrupted a performance due to a cellphone or other disruption.
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4 Comments Add a Comment
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- Sounds like the guy timed his drugs right, but not his phone.
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- Wouldn't surprise me. Some people are addicted to cell phones. I, on the other hand, wish they could all be silenced.
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- Would this were a rare occurrence. Instead it happens all too often at concerts and plays and films. If it happened at the end of the Mahler Ninth, which has been described by some as music and silence coming together in a profound blend, it would indeed be a true horror. Mahler did not have in mind music, silence, and Marimba ringtone.
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- Good for the conductor. The guy should have been brought up on stage and introduced! I am sure he is quite happy that he single handedly ruined a performance of the orchestra. It also makes me wonder with our complete attachments to these cell phones that if he were making love to his (wife, partner, dog or significant other/it) doeas he still have the cell phone turned on and say, hanging around his neck?
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