Orchestra will allow audience to use mobile phones to reach young fans

Music fans will be able to use their mobile phones to film one of the country’s leading orchestras despite a backlash from some of its members.

Emma Stenning, chief executive of The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, said the move would allow it to appeal to “younger people” who were not interested in the “old rules”.

She spoke out a month after after singer Ian Bostridge stopped a performance to confront audience members who were using their phones while he was on stage.

Ms Stenning told The Times the orchestra could not expect to get a younger audience “on the old rules”.

She said: “We need to be able to have a conversation about the opportunity of relaxing some of the traditions of the concert hall just to see that they get to us.”

She said the singers and musicians knew the audience recording policy, which was brought in before her appointment in 2023, adding: “If someone is super uncomfortable then we won’t do it.”

Bostridge stopped during an April 17 performance of Benjamin Britten’s Les Illuminations after he was “distracted” by people using their phones.

He subsequently said he was unaware of the orchestra policy, which he thought “inappropriate”.

“It is a live performance and you are trying to keep your own concentration to convey something that is quite complex musically,” he told the BBC.

“You are trying to connect with the people and there is so much in the news these days about how we are too distracted by phones and how can we escape.”

Stenning said there had been discussions about bringing in “quiet carriages” in the concert hall like those in trains where you are not allowed to use phones.