iPad 2 pushes sheet music, and page turners, off the stage

The iPad continues its dizzying rampage, decimating netbooks, dayplanners and 90-pound textbooks. It now claims its most awkward casualty: the concert hall page turner.

The inevitable future of classical performance arrives in Washington this week when violinist Joshua Bell and pianist Sam Haywood enter the Kennedy Center Concert Hall. They’ll blend contemporary gadgetry with the repertoire.

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Not to worry — Bell isn’t going electric. He’ll step onstage with his prized 1713 Gibson ex Huberman Stradivarius in hand to play a program of Brahms and Ravel, among others. Haywood, however, will carry a new prop for the Steinway, his multi-touch page turner, better known as the iPad 2.

Since early last year, Haywood’s Apple-accessorized lifestyle has allowed him to replace paper scores with digital ones archived on his iPad, a shift made possible through a wide array of technology, including the abundance of downloadable scores and Bluetooth-controlled foot pedals for page-turning.

Inadvertently, the human page turner, that fallible and sometimes reviled third party onstage, has been absent from most of Haywood’s recent performances, a consequence of the wireless age. The advantages are obvious: The iPad is portable, discreet, always well-rested. It won’t skip pages or inadvertently bump Haywood’s hands during Mendelssohn’s “Violin Sonata in F.” It listens to the commands of the pianist’s left foot, eliminating the awkward paper-ruffling sideshow between page turner and performer.

“I’ve had page turners who’ve forgotten their glasses or fallen off the stage,” said Haywood. “The iPad removes so much of the risk. And I can also practice in the dark.”

“I’ve often thought I should write a book about page-turning disasters,” echoed Bell. “I’ve had page turners that criticize in rehearsal, that hum along or hit keys and make funny noises. It’s a really hard job, and it’s sort of nice to walk out onstage without one.”

Haywood admits wireless page-turning is not without glitches. Once he accidentally set his iPad on the ridge of the piano so that it rested on the power switch. A loud chord caused the piano to vibrate so fiercely that the screen immediately went dark. “I’ve been careful to make sure the iPad is placed right side up since then,” Haywood said.

“I was a little nervous about it at first,” Bell said. “I love technology, and I have an iPad, but in concert, I was worried that something would go wrong. ... There are pros and cons to using it. You don’t want people talking about it during the concert.”

Haywood finds that some audience members are intrigued by the presence of the sleek glass tablet, but many don’t notice it. “The ones that see it are curious about how it works, particularly the pedal. ... Why don’t I have to touch the screen?”

Now, even conductors are experimenting with the iPad’s surplus of musical apps and its seemingly limitless library of scores. ForScore, an application for iPad ($4.99), compresses pounds of sheet music into a single device that helps musicians to access any score in the public domain. Users can also annotate copy, personalizing the pages before they practice or perform. Digital scores are a welcome development in a classical industry where many live nomadic, jet-setting lives.