A trumpeter (in the top photo) wore black and white while playing Taps. Behind her, members of a community chorus were dressed in a similar outfit. They preformed during a Memorial Day ceremony in my town.
At Jordan Hall in Boston, a conductor (in the bottom photo) wore black. So did the musicians of the youth ensemble that he was leading.
Smartphones are making it harder for audiences to focus on music. While attending a classical concert at Harvard University, I noticed several audience members staring into their phones. One of those people browsed a shopping website. Some of them sat together; their phones created a line of bluish incandescence. It marred the view of people seated behind them. Worse, it made it hard to follow the progression of the music.
All of these people were twenty something years old.
I resisted an urge to photograph those phone users, or should I say, those rude SOB’s. Management had requested that no cameras be used.
Music has the capacity to unify us. When mobile technology intrudes upon a concert, that unity is forgone.
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