Why British cellists may no longer fly to New York

Mr. Ames says that the situation has become so bad that some appearances abroad are already in jeopardy, threatening cancellations, lawsuits, and insurance rows.

Already, the New York-based Orchestra of St Luke's has cancelled a tour of Britain. And the issue burst into the open on Saturday night when the conductor Mark Elder used the high-profile Last Night of the Proms concert at the Royal Albert Hall to plead for an end to the "unfair" restrictions. "Otherwise," he added "it seems to me that next year we should all look forward to Concerto for Laptop and Orchestra."

British officials say there is little they can do for musicians given the tight restrictions in place. One government official noted that musicians are not the only professionals affected: photographers, camera crews, and even lab technicians are finding it hard to live with the new rules. The government says it is consulting with airlines and airports to see if the restrictions can be modified or relaxed in the near future.

Musicians are not arguing that art should take precedence over security. But they are insisting on a special dispensation for those traveling with instruments that they argue are scannable and contain no internal working parts. Laptops, by contrast, would be more easily adapted to a terrorist's needs, argues Ames. "The idea that some bloke with a cello is a terrorist is laughable. Any terrorist would be more subtle than that," he says.

Kirshbaum says that the restrictions are not so much about enhanced security as about ensuring that staff are not overwhelmed by passengers with awkward baggage. "I was told it was not specifically a security issue; it was an issue of the volume of work that was put on the people manning the machines in the central search area. They were trying to minimize that."

But the outcome, he says, has been an enormous imposition on "the largest body of cultural ambassadors representing Britain." "We are flying the flag for Britain and they are putting shackles on us."

He says it is unthinkable to expect top musicians to travel without their instruments and beg or borrow replacements at their destination. "Our instrument is our voice," he says. "We spend hours every day living with, relating to, getting to know our instrument so that when we go on stage we are in the best possible position to give the best possible performance."

Isserlis, who has planned trips to New York and Japan in the fall, says it is audiences and culture in general that will suffer. "[Instruments are] much less dangerous than laptops and duty-free bottles of highly flammable liquids [such as liquor and perfume], but because they [airport authorities] make money out of that they'll never crack down on it," he says. "It's a threat to our livelihood and a threat to culture."

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