The other day, my husband showed me this YouTube clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRPc6S3sh2gBasically, the story is that a plane was delayed on the tarmac in Beijing for something like 3-4 hours. On board were members of the Philadelphia Orchestra, some of whom (when it became clear that this delay was going to be loooooong) pulled out their instruments and played selections of Dvorak for the rest of the passengers. Most of the people on the plane seem delighted by this, and my husband and I both agreed that this was really awesome, and we would love it if something like this happened to us. I told one of my friends about it though, and her response was "Well sure it's great- unless you don't like Dvorak!"
She was joking, but it did kind of get me idly wondering- the orchestra members were obviously trying to do something nice, but could it possibly be construed as rude to just start playing for a completely captive audience like that? A plane isn't a big space, obviously, and if you didn't like the music or had a headache or something, you really couldn't get away. Personally, I really like classical music, so I would have been delighted by a free Dvorak concert, but if it had been, say, a heavy metal band (I *hate* heavy metal), I would have appreciated that they meant to be nice, but would secretly have been thinking "Oh Lord, please stop, you are making this delay that much more unbearable."
So what do you think? I personally don't think what they did was rude, but could it be seen that way? How would you feel if this happened to you?