Take pictures and applaud when you like, orchestra tells audience
AN ORCHESTRA is to let audiences to use their phones and applaud whenever they want as part of a diversity drive.
The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) said it had decided to get rid of “any perceived ‘rules’ of a traditional concert”.
Ticket holders are now encouraged to use their mobile phones to film and take photos. The reforms have caused concerns, with one tenor forced to halt his performance because of the distractions, and audience members complaining that their enjoyment has been spoiled by others using their devices.
The CBSO has brought in the policies in order to attract “a range of audiences and communities”.
This includes explicit invitations, displayed on signs in the ensemble’s Symphony Hall venue, for audience members to “bring drinks into the auditorium. Clap whenever they like. Wear whatever makes them feel comfortable. Take photos or short snippets of film and to share them with us)”. Traditional rules for concert-going were repealed in late 2023, when the CBSO promised to oversee a “revolution” in how orchestral music is presented to audiences.
The 10-year plan was backed by the company’s chief executive, Emma Stenning, and by its board chairman, Lord Hall of Birkenhead, the former BBC director-general.
A mission statement released at the time said: “To widen its audience, heighten its impact and release its potential, orchestral music needs to be presented in new ways. By embracing a more purposeful approach to programming with, by and for a range of audiences and communities, we will begin to discover new relevance across our programme of events.”
The plans were rolled out to make the ensemble more relevant to a broader public by diversifying performers, the concerts programme, and by making the concert experience more welcoming to new audiences.
On April 17, the plans caused trouble, when tenor Ian Bostridge halted in the middle of a piece from Benjamin Britten’s Les Illuminations to complain that being filmed, something encouraged in the CBSO’S new policies, was “extremely distracting”. The CBSO released a statement, reminding audiences that, while the company is “happy for you to take photographs and short video clips”, ticket-holders should “refrain from recording the whole performance”.
It added: “We do ask that you are mindful of disturbing other audience members.” However, the new policies have not been popular with all audience members. Ruth Millington, author of This Book Will Make You an Artist, was shocked to see the signs displaying the waiving of the rules and has complained about the new concert experience at the hall.
She said: “Most concerning is an invitation for people to ‘take photos or short snippets of film.
“The joy of attending a music concert is to listen and escape, uninterrupted, for just a few hours.
“Everyone can put their phones down for this amount of time.”