Texting at a Symphony?

Cellphones are hardly applauded in concert halls, where it’s considered gauche to have them turned on, much less to pull them out during a performance. So at a recent Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra concert of classics like Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, it was a little surprising when the conductor instructed audience members to take out their phones.

Symphony administrators had decided to let the audience choose the encore by text-messaging votes: “A” for Aaron Copland’s “Hoedown,” or “B” for Wagner’s prelude to Act III of “Lohengrin.” (“Hoedown” won by 23 votes.)

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