an attempt at levity in D.C.

We have been trying various ideas over the last few years in order to make our concerts less formal and more accessible, with the guiding principle that the days of the musicians as the "high-priests" of music are long over. These ideas have included various attempts at "fashion", ad-hoc discussions with the audience during the course of a concert, as well as the avoidance of program-notes in favor of a running narrative during the concert.
At our recent concert at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C., however, we made a new, yet unplanned attempt, to bring the audience in closer. We had just begun the second piece on the program, the "Garten von Freuden und Traurigkeiten" by Gubaidulina when we suddenly started to hear some very strange noises in the hall - it sounded like a space-ship was about to land. We couldn't continue playing the piece by Gubaidulina which features some very delicate passages of music. So, we stopped and waited for the staff of the hall to fix the problem. Marianne Gedigian, our flutist decided it wouldn't do just to sit there and wait in uncomfortable silence and proceeded to ask the audience whether they would like to hear a viola-joke. Of course, they did and so that's what we did for the next few minutes. The audience loved it!
Here is one of the jokes we told:

Violist sits in an orchestra, last stand, last chair and is completely miserable. Suddenly he feels a tap on his shoulder and the personnel manager signs him to follow him off-stage. The personnel manager explains to him: "I am very sorry to tell you this but our music director came to your house, kidnapped the children, burned the house, abducted your wife and killed the dog!"
Violist's response: "The Maestro came to my house?"