Boombox parade known as Unsilent Night returns to Asheville on Friday

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

1

Unsilent Night will liven up Friday night in Asheville. What is Unsilent Night?

From unsilentnight.com:

Unsilent Night is composer Phil Kline’s free outdoor participatory sound sculpture of many individual parts, recorded on cassettes, CD’s and mp3’s, 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.

Kline says: “Every year I present Unsilent Night, which is like a Christmas caroling party except we don’t sing, but rather carry boomboxes, each playing a separate tape or CD which is part of the piece.  In effect, we become a city-block-long stereo system.”

Since its debut in 1992, Unsilent Night has become a cult holiday tradition in NY, drawing crowds of up to 1,500 participants.  Unsilent Night 2009 took place in more than 25 cities and for the first time in London, Denver and Dallas.

Here’s the schedule of events around the world.