Phil Kline

For the Kansas politician, see Phill Kline.

[File:Phil Kline(credit Aleba Gartner).jpg|thumb|Phil Kline]

Phil Kline (born 1953) is an American composer.

Personal Life

Kline was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and raised in Akron, Ohio.

Education

He graduated from Columbia University with a degree in English literature.

Career

After Columbia, Kline formed the New York No Wave band The Del-Byzanteens in the early 1980s with filmmaker Jim Jarmusch and painter/filmmaker James Nares, collaborated with photographer Nan Goldin on the soundtrack to The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, and toured the world as a veteran of Glenn Branca's guitar ensemble.

Early Career

Kline's early compositions feature many cues from performance art. Kline used dozens or even hundreds of boombox tape players to create moving sound sculptures The most famous of these is Unsilent Night, which debuted in New York’s Greenwich Village in 1992. Annual December performances have spread today as an annual holiday tradition that has been celebrated in more than 100 cities on five continents, including cities as Ann Arbor, Asheville, Baltimore, Boulder, Cambridge, Charleston, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Melbourne (Australia), Middlesbrough (UK), Missoula, New Haven, North Adams, Philadelphia, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Fe, Vancouver, and the Yukon. Unsilent Night’s multi-dimensional sound environment floats people through their cities as they walk a pre-determined route.

Kline was encouraged by Glenn Branca to send a cassette tape to the music collective Bang on a Can in 1992. Phil was invited to play during their famed Marathon, where he debuted Bachman's Warbler for 12 tape loops and harmonicas. The piece was favorably received in The Los Angeles Times by critic Mark Swed.

Songs and Theater

Kline's first song cycle, When I Had a Voice, was written in 2001 for mezzo-soprano Alexandra Montano, two child sopranos, and the Parthenia Viol Consort. The text (poetry) was written by David Shapiro, one of Kline's teacher's at Columbia.

Phil’s second and third song cycles were Zippo Songs and Rumsfeld Songs, written for vocalist Theo Bleckmann in 2003. Zippo Songs’ lyrics were inspired by the slogans that American GIs inscribed on their cigarette lighters in Vietnam. Rumsfeld Songs was based on the Pentagon briefings of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld songs was one of the most talked-about records of 2004. It won “Best of the Year” citations throughout the world, including from The New York Times to The Guardian, CNN, NPR.The New Yorker called Zippo Songs "one of the most brutally frank song cycles ever penned."

In the vocal genre, Kline collaborated with the surrealist chamber opera Locus Solus, which is based based on the novel by Raymond Roussel. Kline was comissioned by WNYC New Sounds in 2006 for John the Revelator, written for early-music vocal sextet Lionheart. Kline premiered Fear and Loathing, a song cycle based on the writings of Hunter S. Thompson at Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center in 2008.

In 2012, Kline wrote a new song cycle for Theo Bleckmann, from the Frank Sinatra inspired monodrama Out Cold. The work was produced by American Opera Projects and opened at the BAM Next Wave Festival,serving as the first music theater piece presented at BAM’s new Fishman Space.

Commissioned Works

Kline has received grants and awards from the American Composers Forum, Mary Flagler Cary Trust, Meet The Composer, the New York State Council for the Arts, and the Virgil Thomson Foundation. In 2004, he was the only classical composer nominated for the Shortlist Music Prize.

Bang on a Can All-Stars led to Kline’s first instrumental composition, the sextet Exquisite Corpses, which was debuted at the Lincoln Center in 1997. It was recorded for their debut CD on Bang on a Can’s Cantaloupe Music label.

Kline’s largest work, the 65-minute Around the World in a Daze, was commissioned by the label Starkland to premiere on a surround sound DVD, which was released in March 2009. Several Kline recordings have also been released by Cantaloupe Music.

From 2005-2009, Wally Cardona commissioned Phil to write original scores for three evening-length dance pieces: Everywhere, Site, and Really Real. The premieres took place at BAM’s Harvey Theater, Dance Theater Workshop, Portland’s TBA Festival, Myrna Loy Center in Helena, MT, and New Haven’s Arts & Ideas Festival.

Discography

• Around the World in a Daze (2009)
• John the Revelator (2009)
• Zippo Songs (2004)
• Messiah Remix (2004)
• Ethel, "Blue Room and Other Stories", ETHEL (2003)
• Unsilent Night (2001)
• Renegade Heaven (2001)
• Immersion (2000)
• Alternative Schubertiade (1999)
• Glow in the Dark (1998)
• Emergency Music (1997)
• New York Guitars (1996)
• Bang on a Can Vol. 2 (1993)

External links

• Phil Kline's Website
• “Around the World in a Daze” surround sound DVD
• Cantaloupe Music
• The Housatonic at Henry Street surround sound recording