Fistfight Breaks Out At CSO

By Chuck Sudo in News on Mar 10, 2012 4:30PM

The Sun-Times reports on a slight breach in decorum that happened Thursday at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Audience members could hear a fistfight break out in one of the concert boxes during the closing of the second movement of Brahms Symphony No.2, as a man in his 30s began punching a 67-year-old man over a dispute about seating in the box.

WFMT (98.7 FM) general manager Steve Robinson said he and others in the audience heard a "rather loud thump." The victim suffered a cut on his forehead, while the assailant left before police arrived.

CSO conductor Riccardo Muti was said to have turned his head and shot what a concert-goer described as "dagger eyes" in the direction of the disturbance, but there was only slight delay between the symphony's second and third movements.

“Mind you, he never stopped conducting,” Robinson said. “He very gracefully, without missing a beat — literally — he brought [the second movement] to a very quiet and subdued close, while still looking over his left shoulder.”

We were at Orchestra Hall once when a rash of noodle dancing broke out at a Medeski Martin and Wood concert, which made us want to punch someone. But we never followed through on that urge