not a single night's sky

not a single night’s sky

New Millennium Ensemble Although the eight members of the Common Sense Composers’ Collective are spread all over the country, they mostly share a similar post-minimalist compositional aesthetic. And their shared sensibility has made the previous collective discs remarkably consistent for multiple-composer recordings. But on first listen, the omnivorous post-modernism of Ed Harsh (who also serves… Read more »

Written By

Frank J. Oteri

Frank J. Oteri is an ASCAP-award winning composer and music journalist. Among his compositions are Already Yesterday or Still Tomorrow for orchestra, the "performance oratorio" MACHUNAS, the 1/4-tone sax quartet Fair and Balanced?, and the 1/6-tone rock band suite Imagined Overtures. His compositions are represented by Black Tea Music. Oteri is the Vice President of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) and is Composer Advocate at New Music USA where he has been the Editor of its web magazine, NewMusicBox.org, since its founding in 1999.

New Millennium Ensemble

Although the eight members of the Common Sense Composers’ Collective are spread all over the country, they mostly share a similar post-minimalist compositional aesthetic. And their shared sensibility has made the previous collective discs remarkably consistent for multiple-composer recordings. But on first listen, the omnivorous post-modernism of Ed Harsh (who also serves as vice president of Meet The Composer) frequently sounds completely unrelated to the music of anyone else in the collective. His contribution here, not a single night’s sky, begins with a furious ostinato that is broken within seconds and is transformed into music that is more pensive and introspective. Ostinatos frequently return but are just as frequently subverted, as if Morton Feldman, Arvo Pärt, as well as the other members of the Common Sense Composers’ Collective were arguing in a bar. The more I’ve listened to it, the more I realize it fits right in, but I’ve listened to it a ton of times. (I wrote the booklet notes!)