December 16, 2006 : 6pm - 9pm
Unsilent Night
Washington Square Park, Manhattan, New York, United States
Every year since 1992 Phil Kline has presented Unsilent Night, an outdoor ambient music piece for an INFINITE number of boombox tape players. It's like a Christmas caroling party except that we don't sing, but rather carry boomboxes, each playing a separate tape which is a "voice" in the piece. In effect, we become a city block long stereo system! In 2006 the New York event will happen on Saturday, December 16. We will meet at the Arch in Washington Square Park at 6:45 p.m., begin at 7 p.m. and proceed eastward to Tompkins Square Park, where the piece will end around 8 p.m. It would be really cool if you could join us and bring a boombox. The more tapes we run, the bigger and more amazing the sound will be. This past Christmas we had several hundred boomboxes and well over 1000 people..it was really spectacular. If you'd like to participate, please email me at boombox@mindspring.com so Kline will know how many tapes to make. If you'd like to participate but don't have a boombox, I have several dozen and you can grab one...and if you want to come and just listen, that's cool, too. Help us make a BIG (and joyful) noise.
Admission: Free
― jw (ex machina), Friday, 1 December 2006 21:03 (seventeen years ago) link
phil kline's piece is can't miss, even though parts of it border on cheesy choral christmas music, it's amazing to hear the new sections slowly start to phase in on different boomboxes all around you
also tape players usually run at slightly different speeds so even the choral parts end up sounding strangely detuned
― milton parker (milton parker), Friday, 1 December 2006 21:19 (seventeen years ago) link