Unsilent Night
Unsilent Night is an original composition by Phil Kline. Kline wrote the piece specifically to be heard outdoors in the month of December. Unsilent Night takes the form of a promenade in which the audience becomes part of the experience. Each participant receives one of four tracks of music that is played along with a specifically choreographed route through a city's streets.[1]
Unsilent Night began in winter 1992, when Kline had an idea for the combination of artwork combined with holiday caroling. Kline composed a four-track electronic piece that was 45 minutes long[2], the length of one side of a cassette tape. The composition was split into four parts. Kline invited some friends who gathered in Greenwich Village, gave each person a boombox with one of four tapes in it, and instructed everyone to hit PLAY at the same time. The result was that of a mobile sound sculpture, which provides a different listening experience from every listener's perspective.
Unsilent Night has changed with the times, and is available as a CD or MP3. While technological advances allow the piece to now be played through a multitude of devices, Kline originally designed the piece to incorporate the unreliability, playback delay, and quavering tones of cassette tapes. “Today most people use digital audio players, so I make the audio available in that format as well—but there's something about the twinkling, hallucinatory effect of a warbling cassette tape that I enjoy,” he says.
The studio recording of UNSILENT NIGHT, which layers all the tracks, is available on Bang on a Can's Cantaloupe Music label.
References
- ^ "'Unsilent Night' and Participatory Music - The New York Times".
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|dead-url=(help) - ^ "Unsilent Night". Time Out New York. Retrieved 2018-05-30.