The BBC reports that protesters disrupted a Thursday evening performance of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall in London. The BBC, which was broadcasting the concert live, took it off the air, brought it back, and then took it off again an hour later when the protest resumed, according to the report. The BBC’s “Proms Team” tweeted an apology, blaming “sustained audience disturbance.”
The orchestra’s About Us page boasts that it gives “special concerts for IDF soldiers at their outposts.” The foundation that supports it calls it “Israel’s musical ambassador,” and the American Friends of the IPO observe that “the IPO is Israel’s finest cultural emissary” and that “[t]he goodwill created by [its] tours, which have included historic visits to Japan, Argentina, Poland, Hungary, Russia, China and India, is of enormous value to the State of Israel.”
