Silent Orchestra Disbands After Door Jams

Violinist Soren Glass has disbanded his orchestra. The five-piece chamber group, founded in the low-gravity domes of Grimaldi Crater, spent thirty years refining the end of their concerts. While other ensembles welcomed clapping, these musicians demanded silence.

It began simply. In 2915, they played for forty minutes and then sat perfectly still for three. By 2930, the silence lasted half an hour. The players did not rest. They leaned forward in their carbon-fibre chairs, glaring at the audience.

They watched for any movement. Glass wore magnifying lenses to track the rise and fall of listeners' chests. If a patron exhaled too loudly, the entire group stared at them until they wept. One listener, Peter Chen, was stared at for twenty minutes after his watch beeped. He left the dome.

The end came on Thursday. A letter found in Glass's instrument case revealed the secret of their famous silence. The green stage door had jammed during their first concert, and they were too embarrassed to climb over the instruments.

"We were just waiting for a technician," Glass wrote.