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Chisinau (dpa) - One of the world's top pianists quit playing mid- concert after a member of the Moldovan audience refused to turn off his mobile phone, the Infotag news agency reported Thursday.
Nikolai Petrov, a van Cliburn prize winner, had been performing at a Wednesday evening charity concert in the National Organ Hall in the Moldovan capital Chisinau.
The ringing of a mobile phone in the audience interrupted Petrov's second selection, at which Petrov stopped playing until the phone's owner answered the call, and completed his conversation.
When the audience-member's telephone range a second time, Petrov left the stage. He made no comment, past requesting the mobile phone user to exit the hall as well, the report said.
The audience had been requested to turn their mobile phones off prior to the performance, and the concert hall had placed instructions to that effect at all seating entrances.
"This is a tragedy, it was a huge effort to get (Nikolai) Petrov to come to Molodova and to play practically for free," said Vlad Miros, a Moldova Ministry of Culture spokesman.
"And now there is no telling when he will come back - if ever," Miros said. Petrov left Moldova on Thursday, cancelling a performance scheduled that evening.
Mobile phones are a wildly-popular accessory for Molova's nouveaux riches. Some less-sophisticated Moldovans consider loud conversations in public on one's mobile a sign of importance and wealth.
Petrov, 62, is one of the finest musicians the Soviet Union ever produced and has performed worldwide for four decades. He is the author of more than fifty concertos and founder the Nikolai Petrov International Philanthropic Foundation.
Copyright 2006 dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH
