Conductor Stops New York Philharmonic Concert After Cell Phone Interruption

Gustavo Caballero, WireImage

Whether you're at the movies or the symphony, before the show you are always prompted to do one thing: Turn off your cell phone. But at a recent performance of Mahler's Ninth Symphony at the New York Philharmonic, someone did not heed the warning.

According to the Daily Mail, venerable conductor Alan Gilbert was on the final page of the chilling piece. The strings had come to roaring crescendo as some of Mahler's most emotional music sauntered toward the end. Suddenly, the calming silence was broken.

A marimba sounded. But not just any old marimba -- an iPhone marimba.

A front-row spectator had not turned off his phone, which chimed and chimed during the Philharmonic's epic climax. Classical music blogger Michael Jo reports, "When we reached that passage, as Alan Gilbert turned to the first violins and the sound grew ever more hushed and veiled, the unmistakable chimes of the iPhone Marimba ringtone resounded loud and clear throughout Avery Fisher Hall."