This really has to be read to be believed and my sincere kudos to New York Philharmonic conductor Alan Gilbert for keeping his cool. I’m not sure I could have managed to handle this nearly as gracefully.

Now, on the subject of cellphones: can we agree on this point? If you have somehow forgotten to turn off or silence your cellphone–for whatever the reason–and it goes off in a packed opera house or concert hall, FOR PITY’S SAKE don’t sit there pretending it isn’t yours! All you are doing is prolonging the agony for the musicians and audience and exascerbating the disruption to the performance.

Lunge, and I do mean LUNGE for that device, and get it silenced as quickly as possible, as you mouth the words “Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa” or simply “I’m sorry!” to those around you. And then, to quote Henry Fonda in The Lady Eve, we shall be as we were.

But I swear…I swear…the next time I attend a live music event and I spot someone sitting there with their phone going off in their purse as they pretend not to notice – I just might throw a handful of throat lozenges.  Oh, wait, I’m PR.  Let me rephrase that: My HUSBAND just might drop a lozenge or two on the perpetrator’s cranium.  Accidentally, of course.

Watch where you sit.

(Photo from CNN)

Suzanne Calvin, Manager/Director Media & PR