Conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, leading the Chicago Symphony in a performance of the Ninth Symphony of Gustav Mahler – a work whose deathly quiet finale is infamously vulnerable to extramusical noises – copes with a bronchial audience by tossing cough drops from the stage, reports Lawrence A. Johnson of Chicago Classical Review:
http://chicagoclassicalreview.com/2013/11/tilson-thomas-throws-out-the-first-lozenge-for-noisy-cso-audience/
(Thanks to Bill Comita for passing this along.)