Phil Kline’s Unsilent Night is a mobile outdoor sound sculpture in which the audience becomes the performer.

Composed in 1992, it has become a beloved holiday tradition for people of all ages around the world. Each participant plays one of four tracks on an amplified phone (via an app) or boombox (loaded with a cassette) or any other device that amplifies music. All the participants need to do is carry a speaker and press “play” at the same time; the group then walks a carefully planned route. The multi-track electronic ambient piece is 45 minutes long (the length of one side of a cassette, the medium Phil wrote this for), creating a soundscape that constantly changes as it travels through space and time. Streets, parks, and sidewalks come alive with “a shimmering sound-wall of bells and chimes that is dreamlike to wander through in the December nip” (THE VILLAGE VOICE).

“The effect of Kline's music is gorgeous. Bell sounds lap up against buildings and ricochet all around, and the nondenominational spirit of it can warm even the coldest of hearts.”

— THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

“A dreamy fruitcake of parts, tranquil even through its anarchy.”

— LOS ANGELES TIMES

“A taste of what it’s like to be a snowflake, drifting euphorically through shared, crystalline space.”

— AIR MAIL

“Immerses the listener in suspended wonderment, as if time itself had paused inside a string of jingle bells.”

— THE NEW YORK TIMES

“Kline’s score, like toy chimes floating on the cold air, brings magic to the long, dark winter nights.”

— THE NEW YORK POST