Jonathan Little

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ASCAP award-winning British 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 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"), applauding “a major new, original and quite brilliant classical voice”. During 2010-2011, 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 4 successive ASCAPlus Awards for Concert Music and 5 Masterworks Recording Prizes), with his existing scores being published in rough opus order over the next few years. His Kyrie for double choir and soloists was poignantly featured in Thierry Donard’s French film, Nuit de la Glisse (Uppercut Entertainment).

His album, Terpsichore and Other Works, was 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”. In 2009 he became the first composer to receive a Professional Development Award from the Musicians Benevolent Fund - the UK music business's own charity - specifically to assist towards issuing a further disc in ERM's "Prestige" Series in 2010, entitled Polyhymnia (The Muse of Sacred Poetry).

Little's evocative music is characterised by its beauty, intensity, richness of material and elegance of craftsmanship. Sound samples of various works may be heard on this site.

A FANFARE RECOMMENDED RECORDING 2008:

* "A remarkable disc of remarkable music ... an astonishing range of styles"

For worldwide customers:

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CRITICAL OPINION:

- "An inspired creation ... beautifully expansive ... voluptuous sonorities" - Music & Vision (May 2009, 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)

- "talent indeed ... Little's music sounds like no-one else's. Not anyone's. This is an aural experience." – Fanfare (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)

- "a very stong grasp of instrumental colour and the type of music which fulfils non-diegetic function in film ... the crafting of orchestration is finely honed" – Music Forum (May-July 2009, Australia)

- “talent and ability … a gifted writer … wonderful vocal work” – ERMMedia (USA)

- "Here, Little demonstrates his command of orchestration ... lush and at ease with the tropes of modernist tonal music." - Music Forum (May-July 2009, Australia)

- “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)

- “immense creativity and innovation while remaining accessible to new listeners” – ASCAP Playback Magazine (Summer, 2006) (New York, USA)

- “touching music … a unique voice” – Maestro Robert Ian Winstin, Executive Director of the Foundation for New Music (Virginia, USA)

- “this heart-rending panorama with an exceptionally hypnotic array of musical colour … immensely poetic – almost otherwordly” – John Wheatley, in Tempo (Cambridge University Press, July 2010, UK)

For full reviews, see especially: Tempo, UK (Vol.62: No.243, Jan. 2008, pp.88-89) and Tempo (Vol.64: No.253, July 2010), MusicOMH.com (Nov. 2008), Music & Vision (16th May, 2009), 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).