David T. Little

Hailed as a "grand-scale thinker" by the NJ Star Ledger, David T. Little writes music that "completely gripped" New Yorker critic Alex Ross: "every bad-ass new-music ensemble in the city will want to play him." Performed widely—Dresden, Edinburgh, Boston, LA, Montreal, and at the Tanglewood, Aspen, MATA and Cabrillo Festivals, and by such groups as eighth blackbird, So Percussion, ensemble courage, Newspeak, NOW Ensemble, Grand Rapids Symphony, and The New York City Opera—Little's work fuses classical and popular idioms to dramatic effect. His music has received awards and recognition from Tanglewood, Aspen, The American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, the Harvey Gaul Competition, BMI, and ASCAP, and has been commissioned by Carnegie Hall, the Albany Symphony, Gallery I-20, the New World Symphony, Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, and the University of Michigan, in honor of the 125th anniversary of the School of Music.

An active drummer in New York, Little performs regularly with his ensemble Newspeak, and with the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE). He holds degrees from Susquehanna University, The University of Michigan and Princeton University--where he is a PhD candidate in composition—and currently teaches music in New York through Carnegie Hall's Musical Connections program. His primary teachers have included Osvaldo Golijov, Steven Mackey, Paul Lansky, William Bolcom, and Michael Daugherty. Upcoming projects include the opera Dog Days (in-progress) with librettist Royce Vavrek, new works for violist Nadia Sirota, pianist Kathleen Supové, cellist Brian Snow, Third Coast Percussion, and Newspeak, and performances by London Sinfonietta, and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra under Marin Alsop.