Phil Kline
Force of Nature (Crellin Park)
Force of Nature (Crellin Park) is a mobile, living sound sculpture in which YOU are the performer—roaming the contours of Crellin Park and playing the music on cassette players, portable speakers, and cell phones. The inspiration came from listening to people playing music around the neighborhood on a summer day, hearing all of the different songs and sounds at the same time, and thinking: wouldn’t it be cool to orchestrate the whole thing?
Join us on Crellin Park Day as we process through the park, playing an electronic score celebrating summer and incorporating recordings of the voices of local children, including from the Columbia County Youth Theatre, coordinated by Edgar Acevedo. Everyone is welcome to participate in this celebration of community, summer, and sound!
Free & Family-Friendly
All ages are welcome—bring your friends, family, and curiosity for sound and community. No musical experience required!
Force of Nature is a music and sound art project created by legendary downtown New York composer and Spencertown resident Phil Kline, made specifically to be experienced at PS21, and now in Crelin Park. The first Force was presented in February, with over two hundred people participating (and a very cool write up in The New York Times!), followed by Force of Nature (June) for which 90 people gathered at sunrise to ring in summer on the longest day of the year. Force of Nature (Crellin Park) is a reprise of the June performance, reconceived for the fields and paths of Crellin Park.
Force of Nature app designed by Josh Parmenter.
Commissioned by PS21 : Center for Contemporary Performance.
Step One:
Reservations are encouraged (or just show up at Crellin Park Day)
Step Two:
Download the FORCE OF NATURE app on Apple or Android
Step Three:
Charge and bring a bluetooth speaker linked to your phone. You can bring a cassette player and be provided with a cassette, or borrow one of Phil’s (but they will go fast!). A limited number of bluetooth speakers will be available at the event if you don’t have one.
Step Four:
Wear clothing and shoes appropriate for the weather and for walking on a summer afternoon.
Schedule
Saturday, August 15
3:00 PM Assemble in Crellin Park at the PS21 table to prepare
3:30 PM Force of Nature procession
Duration 33 minutes
A survivor of New York’s downtown scene, Phil Kline is known for his range and unpredictability. From vast boombox symphonies to chamber music and song cycles and stage works, his work has been hailed for originality, beauty, and subversive subtext. Out of the suburbs of Akron, Ohio, Phil came to New York City to study poetry with Kenneth Koch and David Shapiro at Columbia. After graduation, he moved to the Lower East Side, cofounded the band the Del-Byzanteens with Jim Jarmusch and James Nares, collaborated with Nan Goldin on the soundtrack to The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, and played guitar in the notorious Glenn Branca Ensemble.
Early compositions used large numbers of boomboxes, such as Bachman’s Warbler, or the outdoor Christmas cult classic Unsilent Night, now a global holiday tradition. Other notable works include Exquisite Corpses, written for the Bang on a Can All-Stars; the politically-infused Zippo Songs and Rumsfeld Songs; John the Revelator, a setting of the Latin Mass written for Lionheart; and the song cycles Out Cold and Florida Man, written for Theo Bleckmann, and Ghost Story for soprano Nicoletta Berry.
(Currently working on a surreal comic opera about a family in the apocalypse, Blink!)
