Playing a Symphony with Cellular Phones

“Can you play a symphony with cell phones?”

Of course, you can listen to Beethoven Symphony No.9 “Coral” from a cell phone. This time, however, a composer comes to make “a symphony for mobile phones.”

Who? This is British composer Simon Turner. He showed “New Ring Cycle,” a symphony for 30 mobile phones in Chelten International Festival of Music in Cheltenham, hometown of British composer William Wilton.

30 “musicians” carrying cell phones were named as Chelten SIM-phone-ya.

They were “tuning their instruments” – checking times when phones should ring – and let their phones give tunes downloaded, following the direction of the conductor. A person from the audience said that they played the music like small pipe organs.

The piece consists of three movements. The first movement presented the “evolution” of the sounds of telephone and cell phone bell. In the second movement, the audience can participate in the music, and the last one was called “a celebration finale.”

“Ringing at a concert is very annoying, because the device for communication is actually hampering the communication between the musician and the audience. However, this time, I want to make the device “a vehicle helping communication.”

The point which composer Turner wants to make in the piece.

Introducing this “special” concert, InformationWeek, a U.S. information technology magazine, added that Nokia, the world-class Finnish mobile phone company, would ask minimalism composers to create novel pieces.

Yoon-Jong Yoo gustav@donga.com