Jonathan Little (composer)

Jonathan Little
Born Melbourne, Australia
Nationality Australian
Occupation Composer

Jonathan David Little (born Melbourne, Australia, in 1965) is a composer, academic and writer based in the UK, working mainly in the “contemporary classical” genre. In 2009 he became the first composer to receive a Professional Development Award from the UK Music Business’s own charity, the Musicians' Benevolent Fund,[1] and since 2005 he has received annual ASCAPlus Awards for Concert Music, five “Masterworks” Recording Prizes (US), and in 2008 his first major album release was voted one of the top recordings of the year by US Fanfare magazine (“The Want List 2008”).[2] He was subsequently featured in a major news article in Musical Opinion in early 2009.[3] As a composer, he first came to prominence in America in 2006 when The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers ran an article on him having five of his works accepted for recording (2004–07) by the US-headquartered French contemporary music label ERM (Editions de la Rue Margot), aimed at showcasing international contemporary composers.[4]

Contents

Music and background

Little’s music is notable for its "beauty, intensity and richness of material".[5] He studied Composition and Performance at the University of Melbourne, where he won the Lady Turner Exhibition for overall excellence. He holds the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in music for his research at Monash University into the development of "exotic" 19th- and 20th-century orchestration, and has written and broadcast extensively on this, and related topics, often in the context of wider cultural history and related art forms.[6][7][8][9][10][11][12]

In 2008, the first compilation album of his music was released on Dilute Recordings (UK) to universal critical praise. Entitled Terpsichore and Other Works, it first drew plaudits from Cambridge University Press’s new music journal, Tempo, which described the title orchestral work as a “ground-breaking tour de force … incandescent”,[13] while, in America, Fanfare magazine admired its “music of tremendous power … [and] astonishing range of colors and moods”.[14] American critic and recording historian Lynn René Bayley ranked the album second amongst her Top 5 worldwide releases for the year (in Fanfare's "Want List 2008"), applauding “a major new, original and quite brilliant classical voice”.[15] Terpsichore is one of a series of epic orchestral tone pictures on the theme of the legendary “Nine Muses” – and the complete series remains a monumental work-in-progress.[16]

Jonathan Little works in a variety of genres, including large-scale choral, string and symphonic works. Recordings have been supported by the Foundation for New Music (US), the Kenneth Leighton Trust (UK) and ASCAP (US). A second major disc (released in early 2012), entitled Polyhymnia (The Muse of Sacred Poetry), appeared on the Navona label of PARMA Recordings (US), supported by ASCAP and the Musicians Benevolent Fund.[17]. Little was also awarded a PRS For Music Foundation/ Bliss Trust Composer Bursary in 2012, to help support composition of Erato in his "Nine Muses" series. A member of the Los Angeles chapter of The Recording Academy, and of Grammy 365, Little’s performing rights are assigned to ASCAP.

Career and writings

Jonathan Little has also pursued an academic and writing career. He was appointed Senior Lecturer at Buckinghamshire New University in 1999 on their innovative Music Industry Management course (the first such degree course in Europe) – where he specialised in the workings of the British and international recording industry, and taught songwriting analysis. In 2001, he became Principal of the Academy of Contemporary Music in Guildford, England – Europe’s largest specialist academy for students of contemporary music, and the first music education establishment to win the Queen's Award for Enterprise (Innovation category).[18] Having acted as a Curriculum Consultant to the Brighton Institute of Modern Music, and Visiting Lecturer in Media Music Composition at the University of Surrey, Little is now Senior Lecturer in Music at the University of Chichester (since 2006).

An authority on aspects of composition, orchestration and songwriting, Little is listed in the Music Publishers Association (UK) Register of Expert Musicologists. In 2005, he was appointed Consultant Editor to A&C Black’s flagship volume of musical reference, the Musicians’ and Songwriters’ Yearbook,[19] and he has contributed articles on the future of music to the Hudson Institute's American Outlook magazine,[20][21][22] and the British Academy’s Heart & Soul: Revealing the Craft of Songwriting (published by Sanctuary to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Ivor Novello Awards).[23] His writings on the future of the music industry initially stemmed from an important report surveying the first European digital distribution conference in 2000,[24] and subsequently with Scottish music industry analyst JoJo Gould, he co-founded and edited Music Business Journal (ISSN 1473-6233) – which in the early 2000s was the world’s leading online music business journal.

Little has written two major academic studies on musical orientalism and exotic orchestration for Edwin Mellen Press: The Influence of European Literary and Artistic Representations of the 'Orient' on Western Orchestral Compositions, ca.1840-1920: From Oriental Inspiration to 'Exotic' Orchestration,[25] together with its companion volume, Literary Sources of Nineteenth-Century Musical Orientalism: The Hypnotic Spell of the Exotic on Music of the Romantic Period. (This definitive 900-page, two-volume study won an Authors' Foundation/Royal Literary Fund Award for 2011.) Other notable writings are his Theory and Practice of Songwriting (otherwise Practical Songwriting) for Robert Hale Ltd, and On Musical Composition for Wirripang – Australia’s leading independent fine music publisher, and issuer of many of Jonathan’s compositions in score format.[26]

The National Library of Australia holds copies of Little's selected verse, and all his published musical works.

Media

Selected recorded music reviews

Principal works (published)

Musical scores

Symphonic and String Orchestra Works

Chamber and Instrumental Music

Choral and Vocal Music

Major recordings

Writings

Doctoral Dissertation

Books (monographs)

Books (edited)

Chapters in Books

Articles – academic and general

Articles – business and technology

Radio Programmes

Public Lectures

Verse, Essays and Belles-Lettres

Other publications and roles

References

  1. ^ “Jonathan Little’s Story”, article on Musicians Benevolent Fund (UK) website [online], May 2010. MBF (UK) 2010 Story - Jonathan Little, http://www.helpmusicians.org.uk/help_you/professionals/professional_development/jonathan_littles_story.aspx
  2. ^ See reviews in Fanfare (US), Vol.31: No.5 (May–June 2008), pp.179-180 and Fanfare (US), Vol.32: No.2 (Nov-Dec 2008), p.77
  3. ^ See Musical Opinion (UK), No.1468 (Jan-Feb 2009), p.7.
  4. ^ “A British composer makes a big wave in the concert music world”, in ASCAP (US) Playback magazine, Summer 2006.[online]First major ASCAP (US) 2006 Story http://www.ascap.com/playback/2006/summer/faces_places/london/jonathanlittle.html
  5. ^ See biography and works list at: http://www.australiancomposers.com.au/
  6. ^ Little, Jonathan, “Cultural Years: Music, the Arts and Society at the time of the Great International Exhibitions, 1851-1937”, being a series of seven x (average) 90min. radio programmes, written and presented for 3MBS-FM Fine Music Radio (Melbourne), and broadcast fortnightly from 1st April, 1990 – with an introductory article in Libretto (April, 1990), p.7.
  7. ^ Little, Jonathan, “Nostalgia, Exoticism and Brilliant Colour”, Arts Rondo (Melbourne Winter, 1992).
  8. ^ Little, Jonathan, “Orientalism” (An abbreviated version of the article “Orientalism: Counterpart of the Gothic in Nineteenth-Century Artistic Inspiration”), Udolpho, vol.26 (Autumn, 1996), 14-17.
  9. ^ Little, Jonathan, “On Western Travellers who described and drew inspiration from "Eastern" instruments and music, ca.1830s-1850s”, FoMRHI Quarterly, no.98 (January, 2000), 41-45, Comm.1690.
  10. ^ Little, Jonathan, “Musical Instruments Evocative of the Ancient Orient”, FoMRHI Quarterly, no.99 (April, 2000), 21-30, Comm.1707.
  11. ^ Little, Jonathan, “Oriental Colour and Atmosphere: Why Exotic Colour became Prominent in 19th- and early 20th-Century Orchestration”, FoMRHI Quarterly, no.102 (January, 2001), 23-28, Comm.1745.
  12. ^ Little, Jonathan, “Exoticism Globalised: The Forgotten Roots of World Music”, in Music Business Journal (April–June, 2001).
  13. ^ Wheatley, John, “Jonathan Little: Terpsichore and other Works” [CD Review], in Tempo (UK), Vol.62: No.243 (Jan. 2008), pp.88-89.
  14. ^ “Little, Jonathan: Terpsichore and Other Works” [CD Review] in Fanfare (US), Vol.31: No.5 (May–June 2008), pp.179-180.
  15. ^ See “Lynn René Bailey: The Want List 2008”, in Fanfare (US), Vol.32: No.2 (Nov-Dec 2008), p.77.
  16. ^ See Wheatley, John, “Jonathan Little: Polyhymnia” [CD Review], in Tempo (UK), Vol.64: No.253 (July 2010).
  17. ^ See “Jonathan Little’s Story”, article on Musicians Benevolent Fund (UK) website re Professional Development Award [online], May 2010. MBF (UK) 2010 Story - Jonathan Little http://www.helpmusicians.org.uk/help_you/professionals/professional_development/jonathan_littles_story.aspx
  18. ^ See:http://www.acm.ac.uk
  19. ^ Little, Jonathan and Katie Chatburn, eds, The Musicians and Songwriters Yearbook 2008 (London: A&C Black, 2008). http://www.amazon.co.uk/Musicians-Songwriters-Yearbook-2008-Essential/dp/0713684720
  20. ^ Little, Jonathan, “Celestial Jukebox”, in American Outlook (Jan/Feb, 2001), 42-44.
  21. ^ Little, Jonathan, “Celestial Cinema; or, From Celluloid to Silicon: eCinema, Cyberentertainment and the Napsterization of Hollywood”, in American Outlook, Vol.IV, No.4 (July/Aug, 2001), 28-33.
  22. ^ Little, Jonathan, “The Sound of Money”, in American Outlook, Vol.V, No.3 (Summer, 2002), 41-45.
  23. ^ Little, Jonathan, “The Complete Songwriter/Producer”, in Heart and Soul: Revealing the Art of Songwriting, ed. Chris Bradford (London: Sanctuary Publishing, 2005).
  24. ^ Little, Jonathan, Digital Distribution and the Music Industry. Summary of the Proceedings of the First European Conference on Digital Distribution and the Music Industry, London, 22–23 May 2000, 14pp. (High Wycombe: Buckinghamshire University College, 2000).
  25. ^ First reviewed by John Wheatley in Tempo, Vol. 65, No.257 (July 2011) (Cambridge University Press,UK), pp.92-3.
  26. ^ See biography and works list at: http://www.australiancomposers.com.au/

External links