Dilettante Music

*** “A MAJOR NEW, ORIGINAL AND QUITE BRILLIANT CLASSICAL VOICE" *** Fanfare Magazine CRITICS' CHOICE for 2008 (USA)
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ASCAP award-winning British-Australian composer Jonathan Little studied Composition and Performance at the University of Melbourne, where he won the Lady Turner Exhibition for overall excellence. In the period 2004-07, the US-based French contemporary music label ERM (Editions de la Rue Margot) became the first record company to undertake to release a selection of his compositions within their international “Masterworks” CD series, with the Czech and Kiev Philharmonic orchestras, and vocal soloists of the Sofia National Opera (Vols. 3, 5, 8, 10 & 11).

In late 2007, Jonathan’s first major international release on Dilute Recordings (UK) was hailed in Cambridge University Press’s Tempo magazine as a “ground-breaking tour de force … incandescent” (finding it somewhat akin to "21st-century" Ravel) , while Fanfare magazine in America felt it to contain “an astonishing range of colors and moods” and “music of tremendous power”. The recording was jointly supported by the Kenneth Leighton Trust (UK) and the Foundation for New Music (USA). In December, American critic and recording historian Lynn René Bayley ranked the album second amongst her Top 5 worldwide releases for the year (Fanfare's "Want List 2008"). During 2009-2011, studies of some of Jonathan’s prize-winning compositions will be published within five volumes of the major American reference series, Masterworks of the New Era: Music of the 20th & 21st Century (ERM Media).

Jonathan’s performing rights are assigned to ASCAP (he has won 3 successive ASCAPlus Awards for Concert Music), with his existing scores being published in rough opus order over the next few years. Recently his Kyrie for double choir and soloists was poignantly featured in Thierry Donard’s French film, "Nuit de la Glisse" (Uppercut Entertainment), and also performed at the Easter Tenebrae Concert at Wells Cathedral.

His latest album, Terpsichore and Other Works, has been greeted with universal critical acclaim, and has received widespread airplay in America. The disc contains a representative selection of music for a range of forces: choral, vocal, string, percussion, and a large-scale orchestral work – Terpsichore: The Whirler, or Muse of Dance – one of a series of epic orchestral tone pictures on the theme of the legendary “Nine Muses”.

Terpsichore is an entry for "Best Classical Contemporary Composition" in the 51st Grammy Awards (2009).

Jonathan Little's music is characterised by its beauty, intensity, richness of material and accessibility. Sound samples of various works may be heard below.

A FANFARE RECOMMENDED RECORDING 2008:
"A remarkable disc of remarkable music ... an astonishing range of styles"
(Customers in UK, Europe and elsewhere):
http://www.diluterecordings.com/label/dil07002/index.html
(Customers in North America):
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0018O3MMA/ref=nosim/?tag=mytriggerscom-20&creative;=380333&creativeASIN;=B0018O3MMA&linkCode;=asn

CRITICAL OPINION:
- "talent indeed ... Little's music sounds like no-one else's. Not anyone's. This is an aural experience." – Fanfare magazine (May-June 2008, USA)
- "whirling kaleidoscope of sounds … ending on something of the succulent grandeur of a Respighi tone poem. This is music that brings to mind so much else but at the same time isn't quite like anything you've heard before." - Music OMH (Nov 2008, UK)
- “talent and ability … a gifted writer … wonderful vocal work” – ERMMedia (USA)
- “touching music … a unique voice” – Maestro Robert Ian Winstin, Executive Director of the Foundation for New Music (Virginia, USA)
- “immense creativity and innovation while remaining accessible to new listeners” – ASCAP Playback Magazine (Summer, 2006) (New York, USA)
- “innovative music … a positively dynamic musical palette … moving the listener irrevocably onward to a brightly illuminated plain of poetic splendour, rhythm and ecstasy” – Tempo (Cambridge University Press, January 2008, UK)
- "An extraordinary range of sensations. ... This is certainly novel stuff and I suspect time will prove it to be a good deal more than that." - Music OMH (Nov 2008, UK)

For full reviews, see especially Tempo, UK (Vol.62: No.243, Jan. 2008, pp.88-89), MusicOMH.com (Nov. 2008), Fanfare, USA (Vol.31: No.5, May-June 2008, pp.179-180), and again Fanfare, USA (Vol.32: No.2, Nov-Dec 2008, p.77).