This November New York comes to Oxford with Phil Kline’s atmospheric Unsilent Night. Grab your boombox and take your place in this festive promenade. We’ll gently discover together Oxford’s historic and contemporary city streets accompanied by the soundscape of this now iconic soundtrack of the season.

Kline’s inspiration for the event was a holiday carolling party. He composed a shimmering piece of music that interweaves bells, ethereal voices and electronic ambience to capture the feeling of the season. With a small group of friends they gathered in Greenwich Village with their boomboxes and experienced the music in an extraordinary new way as it reverberated off the buildings and city streets around them. This became an annual tradition and then an international phenomenon, spreading to cities around the globe. Our inspiration came from an Oxford resident who experienced it in NY, was enchanted and so brought it to Oxford. Ours will be one of around 40 cities taking part in its 28th year.

Please register in advance for this event. We cannot guarantee that you will be given a place if you turn up on the night without having registered. All ages welcome. The route is a 45 minute walk.

To take part:

Step 1 Register for the event

Step 2 Choose your instrument: bring a boombox (capable of playing cassette or hooking up to smartphone/mp3 player) or bring portable speakers (hooked up to smartphone / mp3 player) or invent your own sound rig (laptops, speakers on a wagon, megaphones…the louder the better!).

Step 3 Get one of the 4 tracks: Analog cassette (we can supply these, just let us know when you register), or download a sound file (available at unsilentnight.com/participate.html) or download the mobile app (available for Apple iOS and Android), or livestream audio via Soundcloud (available at soundcloud.com/unsilentnight - requires 3G).

Step 4 Bring yourself and your sounds to Radcliffe Square with festive decorations if you fancy, 6pm for a prompt 6.15 start.

VOLUNTEER WITH US! Would you like to help us run this fantastic event? Get in touch at info@ocmevents.org