Nief-Norf presents Phil Kline’s Unsilent Night on December 6th, 209 and invites the Knoxville, and greater East Tennessee, community to participate. Phil Kline’s Unsilent Night is a free, outdoor, participatory sound sculpture of many individual parts, recorded on cassettes, CDs, and mp3s, and played through a roving swarm of boomboxes carried through city streets every December. People bring their own boomboxes and drift peacefully through a cloud of sound which is different from every listener’s perspective. Since 1992, this 45-minute work has grown into a worldwide annual communal event that has become an essential part of many winter holiday celebrations. Nief-Norf has been offering Phil Kline’s Unsilent Night in Knoxville since 2012.
Knoxville residents know that Nief-Norf brings the brightest, most promising composers, performers, and scholars together in June every summer. However, the multi-tiered contemporary music organization is expanding its role as a cutting-edge laboratory for 21st-century chamber music, offering year-round programming with the new Knoxville Concert Series in 2019-2020. Phil Kline’s Unsilent Night is a highlight this of this season along with a Knoxville Symphony Orchestra collaboration and an appearance at Big Ears Festival.
Mark Mobley, who organizes Phil Kline’s Unsilent Night events in Wilmington, DE and Athens, GA, says, “Carrying one of the four tracks is the closest you can get to being in an orchestra where you are a part of this beautiful welter of sound.”
We want to have over one hundred East Tennessee residents join us in making a joyful noise. For those who want to participate:
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Fill out the form on the Nief-Norf website: https://www.niefnorf.org/2019-
20-season/2019/12/6/phil- klines-unsilent-night-in- knoxville -
Go to https://unsilentnight.com/
participate.html to learn more about the piece and download the free App if you want to use an iDevice. -
Participants can also join Nief-Norf and other participants at Casual Pint from 6:30-8:30pm for drinks and good company before we take to the streets.
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Following libations, all participants will meet at 9PM at the base (bottom) of the Knoxville Sunsphere. We will get organized, then walk at 9:30 across the bridge and into downtown Knoxville!
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Participants are encouraged to join the Facebook event (https://www.facebook.com/
events/551395638936412) for updates before the event. -
Note: The success of the piece very much depends on having quality speakers (either line-connected to a device or battery-powered devices). Participants should not plan to simply play the audio off of iPhone / iPad / Laptop speakers.
