Holiday Cult Classic UNSILENT NIGHT Returns For Socially Distanced Performance

For the first time in 28 years, the flagship Unsilent Night in New York City-which in the past has drawn crowds of over 1,000 that move from Washington Square Park to Tompkins Square Park-will not take place as a large public gathering. Instead, Phil asks the public to experience it in their own private way, enlisting members of their household (or 4 socially distanced friends), and sticking to their own neighborhood.

He suggests that everyone press PLAY on their sound device on Sunday, December 20 at 6PM, creating the possibility that anyone anywhere in the city might have a chance encounter with Unsilent Night, which "like toy chimes floating on the cold air, brings magic to the long, dark winter nights" (The New York Post). Read Kline's note to the public here.

An original composition by Phil Kline, Unsilent Night was written specifically to be heard outdoors in the month of December, always as a free event. It takes the form of a promenade in which the audience becomes the performer, walking a carefully chosen route together. Unsilent Night debuted in NYC in 1992 and has since spread to nearly 150 cities across five continents.

It's creator says of the changes, "Unsilent Night was born and raised in New York City. Since 1992, I've led it there every year and watched the crowd grow from a handful of friends to hundreds of people. While I have thought and thought about how we could safely do the Big One in the city this year, I now believe we shouldn't try. It's just too many people!

But let's do this: we can still take to the streets to celebrate-separately but together. On Sunday, December 20 at 6pm, gather your household or a small group of 4-8 friends (socially distanced) for your own Unsilent Night anywhere in the city. Everyone doing their own thing, lighting up the city with music! It's easy to do-the tracks can be downloaded through our website and played on smartphones with bluetooth speakers, or anything that will play an mp3, and you can just do your own walk, in your own neighborhood.

Unsilent Night is, above all, a social event, a party, an occasion for friends and communities to get together and share a winter walk while making joyful noise. We want to keep this spirit alive this year while keeping everyone safe. Needless to say, WEAR MASKS, be mindful of distance, and keep it small and intimate!

Let's all survive this craziness and help each other as best we can. Then we will get together in Washington Square and have the biggest blast possible NEXT YEAR."

This December, composer Phil Kline's mobile sound-sculpture UNSILENT NIGHT -a landmark in avant-garde public art that has become a holiday tradition for so many-takes place in approximately 20 cities across the U.S., Canada, and New Zealand. City streets, parks, and landscapes will come alive with "a shimmering sound-wall of bells and chimes that is dreamlike to wander through in the December nip" (The Village Voice).

COVID-19 safety precautions will be followed in each city. Phil will lead a few himself (The Mount in Lenox MA and Art Omi in Omi NY), making his collection of vintage boomboxes available to borrow on a first-come first-served basis.

Unsilent Night was born in winter 1992, when Phil Kline had an idea for a public artwork in the form of a holiday caroling party. He composed a four-track electronic piece that was 45 minutes long (the length of one side of a cassette tape), 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. What followed was a sound unlike anything they had ever heard: an evanescence filled the air, reverberating off buildings and streets as the crowd walked a pre-determined route, creating a mobile sound sculpture different from every listener's perspective. "In effect, we became a city-block-long stereo system," says Phil. The piece was so popular that it became an annual tradition, and then an international phenomenon.

While technological advances and a mobile app (Android and Apple) allow the piece to now be played through a multitude of devices, Phil 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.