Phil Kline

 ( 20th-century American Classical Composers ) 

First performed in New York City, Unsilent Night is an annual public performance piece in which anyone may participate. Every December, as part of this performance, a volunteer parade carrying boomboxes and other music players passes through Greenwich Village, presenting an ambient cacophony made of recorded , , and electronic instruments to the neighborhood. While Unsilent Night features musical references to ancient Christmas music, the piece itself and its performance are not religion-specific. Since its premiere in 1992, the Unsilent Night tradition has spread to over 116 cities around the world, mostly in the United States and Canada, but also to major cities across Europe, Oceania, Africa, and Asia.

Kline's other notable work primarily includes and opera. Kline's song cycles have historically had political themes, such as his Three Rumsfeld Songs, which borrow text from the The Pentagon briefings of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld following the September 11 terrorist attacks and during the War in Iraq. The source for Kline's Zippo Songs (2004), the song cycle for which he is best known, comes from US government-issued from the Vietnam War, on which some soldiers etched short sayings or poems. These sayings and poems, compiled into Zippo Songs, therefore offers a lens into the social, spiritual, sexual, and emotional lives of these American Vietnam War soldiers. Zippo Songs was written for singer Theo Bleckmann, as well as for violin, percussion, and guitar. Kline's Lounge music-inspired, staged song cycle Out Cold (2012) —about the desperation of lost love —was also written for and performed by Theo Bleckmann.

More recently, Kline has delved into the opera genre with his Tesla, which explores the life and works of inventor Nikola Tesla in collaboration with filmmaker Jim Jarmusch, a colleague from their band, The Del-Byzanteens. Kline has also written music for dance and ballet, such as his work for the Birmingham Royal Ballet.

Other than these projects, Kline's work includes continuing commissions from Bang on a Can, American Opera Projects, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, WNYC, the New York State Council on the Arts, Ethel and Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, Jennifer Koh, Muzik3, the La Jolla, the St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble, and for the Kotschmar Memorial Organ in Portland, Maine. Furthermore, his works have had performances at venues across the world including, Lincoln Center, the Barbican Centre, the Amsterdam Royal Concertgebouw, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Royal Conservatory of Music of Toronto, The Whitney Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Kimmel Center, Trinity Church, Symphony Space, National Sawdust, The Kitchen, and the Badlands National Park.

Kline's Unsilent Night has been called "a magical musical parade," “a tribute to the joy of caroling" ( The Village Voice), and "an ethereal sound sculpture" ( The Guardian); it's been noted for the "benign sense of wonder it instilled in observers" ( San Francisco Chronicle).

Furthermore, although Brian Olewnick ( The Squid's Ear) said that Kline's Zippo Songs has a "lack of memorability," Alex Ross ( The New Yorker, The Rest is Noise) described this collection as "one of the most brutally frank ever penned," and Anne Midgette for The New York Times described it as "brilliant American for the 21st century."

Kline's contemporary adaptation of the Catholic Mass, John the Revelator (2006), was called "offbeat" and "moving" ( The New York Times), and AllMusic called it "easily one of the most moving and engaging mass settings in recent memory."

• Phil Kline's Website
• New York Times profile