Events › Phil Kline's Unsilent Night Holiday Soundscape

Phil Kline's public sound sculpture Unsilent Night is a holiday music event where many individuals simultaneously play one of four tracks on mp3, or mobile devices and blast each through a roving swarm of boomboxes and speakers carried through city streets. 

We will meet in the Large Meeting Room for hot chocolate and cookies at 6PM and then follow a route through the streets of Lincoln Square and Welles Park, ending at the Welles Park Gazebo. The walk will take approximately 45 minutes and will start at 6:30PM sharp. Dress for the weather; the event will take place rain or shine unless unsafe conditions exist.

For more details on how to participate, visit Phil Kline's Unsilent Night website. Please note: We will not be providing cassette tapes for this event, but you are welcome to download and transfer the music to your own cassette and bring a boombox. If you don't have a portable music player, you are still more than welcome to participate in the walk and hear the music. A limited number of Bluetooth speakers will be available. Check out the video from 2024: 

Phil Kline has created a remarkable range of music and sound art—from works using hundreds of tape players to ritual installations, theater and dance pieces; from politically-charged songs to an evening-length mass; from music for choruses and marching bands to chamber ensembles and orchestras, electric guitars and viol consorts. Phil is currently working on an opera in collaboration with filmmaker Jim Jarmusch, the lives and dreams of Nikola Tesla as enacted by the honorable spirits of the Grand Gotham Hotel.

Phil Kline’s Unsilent Night. Copyright © 1992 by Phil Kline. Recording available on Cantaloupe
Music at www.cantaloupemusic.com.

Accessibility
Need sign language interpretation or other accessibility assistance for this event? Please call (312) 747-8184 or email access@chipublib.org to request accommodations. Requests must be made at least 14 business days before the event.

Photo source: Taylor Davidson

Video source: Chris, CPL