Peter Maxwell Davies has branded audience members who allow their phones to ring during concerts 'artistic terrorists'. The 76-year-old composer and Master of the Queen's Music added that he would like to see financial penalities imposed on concertgoers whose phones go off.

Maxwell Davies voiced his opinions after a number of concerts at this year's St Magnus International Festival in Orkney – the festival that he founded in 1977 – were interrupted by mobiles ringing. At one performance, by the London Sinfonietta, audience members shouted at the offenders.

The composer said: 'While the vast majority do remember to switch them off there are those few artistic terrorists who ruin it for everybody. These people should be fined. It is an act of vandalism as far as I am concerned and should be punished as such.'

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