Jonathan Little (composer)
Encyclopedia
Jonathan David Little 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
, 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”). He was subsequently featured in a major news article in Musical Opinion
in early 2009. 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.
, 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.
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”, while, in America, Fanfare magazine admired its “music of tremendous power … [and] astonishing range of colors and moods”. American critic and recording historian Lynn René Bayley ranked the album second amongst her Top 5 worldwide releases for the year (in Fanfares "Want List 2008"), applauding “a major new, original and quite brilliant classical voice”. 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.
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.. 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.
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). 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, and he has contributed articles on the future of music to the Hudson Institute
's American Outlook
magazine, 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
). His writings on the future of the music industry initially stemmed from an important report surveying the first European digital distribution conference in 2000, 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, 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.
The National Library of Australia holds copies of Little's selected verse, and all his published musical works.
Chamber and Instrumental Music
Choral and Vocal Music
Books (monographs)
Literary Sources of Nineteenth-Century Musical Orientalism: The Hypnotic Spell of the Exotic on Music of the Romantic Period [80,000 words; 81 plates; line drawings + mus. exx.] (Lewiston, NY, US; Queenston, Canada; Lampeter, Wales: Edwin Mellen Press, July 2011). Foreword by Emeritus Professor Dolores M. Hsu (University of California, Santa Barbara). ISBN 10: pending ISBN 13: pending; 420pp.The Authors’ Foundation/Royal Literary Fund Award 2011 for this definitive two-volume, 900-page study of Orientalism in music and literature.
A General Chronology of Nineteenth-Century European Musical and Literary Orientalism, 1798-1869 [Part 1] [70,000 words] (Lewiston, NY, USA; Queenston, Canada; Lampeter, Wales: Edwin Mellen Press, 2013). ISBN 10: pending ISBN 13: pending; ca.300pp. Contracted and forthcoming.
A General Chronology of Nineteenth-Century European Musical and Literary Orientalism, 1870-1930 [Part 2] (Lewiston, NY, USA; Queenston, Canada; Lampeter, Wales: Edwin Mellen Press, 2013). ISBN 10: pending ISBN 13: pending; ca.300pp. Contracted and forthcoming.
Practical Songwriting [70,000 words] (London: Robert Hale, 2011). ISBN pending; contracted and forthcoming.
On Musical Composition: A Philosophy and Approach to Early 21st-Century Concert Music Composition [30,000 words] (Wollongong, Australia: Wirripang, 2012). ISBN pending; contracted and forthcoming.
Books (edited)
Chapters in Books
Articles – academic and general
Articles – business and technology
“Celestial Cinema”; or, “From Celluloid to Silicon: eCinema, Cyberentertainment and the Napsterization of Hollywood”, American Outlook, Vol.IV, No.4 (July/Aug, 2001), 28-33. [A summary of the implications of digital distribution for the world-wide film, music and games industries] ISSN 1099-8896. Research commissioned by the Hudson Institute. (Featured cover article: “Hollywood Napstered”.)
“Celestial Jukebox”, American Outlook (Jan/Feb, 2001), 42-44. [A summary of the implications of new music technology] ISSN 1099-8896. Research commissioned by the Hudson Institute.
“The Sound of Money”, American Outlook, Vol.V, No.3 (Summer, 2002), 41-45. [On the tendency of the global music industry to work against its own interests, by encouraging the mass production of bigger – but blander – popular songs] ISSN 1099-8896. Final in a series commissioned by the Hudson Institute.
Radio Programmes
Public Lectures
Verse, Essays and Belles-Lettres
Antique Sonnets, First Series (Malvern, UK: Tillet Press, 2000).
Antique Sonnets, Second Series (Malvern, UK: Tillet Press, 2003).
Two Lyrics (Malvern, UK: Tillet Press, 2005).
Forms and Possibilities: Selected Verse (1983–2002), with an Essay on Melancholia, “The Muse of Bile” – An Appreciation and A Defence of the Artist’s Temperament (Wollongong, Australia: Wirripang, 2011). ISBN 13: 978-1-8768-2923-0
Musicians' Benevolent Fund
The Musicians' Benevolent Fund is a United Kingdom charity offering help and support to working and retired musicians, other professionals in the music industry, and their dependants....
, 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
Fanfare Magazine
Fanfare is a magazine devoted to reviewing classical music performance and recordings.Fanfare's contributors have a range of expertise from the medieval to contemporary work...
(“The Want List 2008”). He was subsequently featured in a major news article in Musical Opinion
Musical Opinion
Musical Opinion, often abbreviated to MO, is a European classical music journal edited and produced in the UK. It is currently among the oldest such journals to be still publishing in the UK, having been continuously in publication since 1877....
in early 2009. 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.
Music and background
Little’s music is notable for its "beauty, intensity and richness of material". He studied Composition and Performance at the University of MelbourneUniversity of Melbourne
The University of Melbourne is a public university located in Melbourne, Victoria. Founded in 1853, it is the second oldest university in Australia and the oldest in Victoria...
, 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
Monash University
Monash University is a public university based in Melbourne, Victoria. It was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the state. Monash is a member of Australia's Group of Eight and the ASAIHL....
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.
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”, while, in America, Fanfare magazine admired its “music of tremendous power … [and] astonishing range of colors and moods”. American critic and recording historian Lynn René Bayley ranked the album second amongst her Top 5 worldwide releases for the year (in Fanfares "Want List 2008"), applauding “a major new, original and quite brilliant classical voice”. 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.
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.. 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 MusicAcademy of Contemporary Music
The Academy of Contemporary Music is a music academy located in Guildford, Surrey, England.The school differs from more traditional music academies by its focus on rock and pop music, and its vocational approach...
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). Having acted as a Curriculum Consultant to the Brighton Institute of Modern Music
Brighton Institute of Modern Music
BIMM Brighton & Bristol Institutes of Modern Music in England is an independent college of popular music based in the cities of Brighton & Hove and Bristol...
, and Visiting Lecturer in Media Music Composition at the University of Surrey
University of Surrey
The University of Surrey is a university located within the county town of Guildford, Surrey in the South East of England. It received its charter on 9 September 1966, and was previously situated near Battersea Park in south-west London. The institution was known as Battersea College of Technology...
, Little is now Senior Lecturer in Music at the University of Chichester
University of Chichester
The University of Chichester is a university based in West Sussex, England. Campuses are based in the city of Chichester and the nearby coastal resort of Bognor Regis...
(since 2006).
An authority on aspects of composition, orchestration and songwriting, Little is listed in the Music Publishers Association (UK)
Music Publishers Association (UK)
The Music Publishers Association is a non-profit organization representing music publishers in the United Kingdom since 1881. It "exists to safeguard and promote the interests of music publishers and the writers signed to them; represent these interests to government, the music industry, the media...
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, and he has contributed articles on the future of music to the Hudson Institute
Hudson Institute
The Hudson Institute is an American think tank founded in 1961, in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, by futurist, military strategist, and systems theorist Herman Kahn and his colleagues at the RAND Corporation...
's American Outlook
American Outlook
American Outlook is an American quarterly public policy magazine that discusses the pressing issues of current events. Published by Sagamore Institute of Indianapolis, Indiana, American Outlook is available in hard copy and online.Staff...
magazine, 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
Ivor Novello Awards
The Ivor Novello Awards, named after the Cardiff born entertainer Ivor Novello, are awards for songwriting and composing. They are presented annually in London by the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors and were first introduced in 1955.Nicknamed The Ivors, the awards take place...
). His writings on the future of the music industry initially stemmed from an important report surveying the first European digital distribution conference in 2000, 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
Edwin Mellen Press
The Edwin Mellen Press, based in Lewiston, New York is a niche publisher of scholarly material and advanced research in the humanities and social sciences. They publish a variety of tomes including monographs, bibliographies, concordances, dictionaries, conference proceedings, dissertations, and...
: The Influence of European Literary and Artistic Representations of the 'Orient' on Western Orchestral Compositions, ca.1840-1920: From Oriental Inspiration to 'Exotic' Orchestration, 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.
The National Library of Australia holds copies of Little's selected verse, and all his published musical works.
Media
Selected recorded music reviews
- Tempo (UK), Vol.62: No.243 (Jan. 2008), pp. 88–89
- MusicOMH.com (UK), Nov. 2008 [online
] - Music & Vision (UK), 16th May, 2009 [online
] - Fanfare (US), Vol.31: No.5 (May–June 2008), pp. 179–180
- Fanfare (US), Vol.32: No.2 (Nov-Dec 2008), p. 77.
Musical scores
Symphonic and String Orchestra WorksChamber and Instrumental Music
Choral and Vocal Music
Major recordings
Writings
Doctoral Dissertation- Sources of Nineteenth-Century Musical Orientalism, or, From "Oriental" Inspiration to Exotic Orchestration: The Extra-Musical Stimuli behind Composers' Attempts to Achieve "Exotic" Programmatic Effects in Orchestral Music, ca. 1840-1920. Ph.D., Music, Monash University, 1995. 560pp. [170,000 words] illus., tbls., mus. exs., works lst., discog., bibliog. DDM Code: 61orLitJ; DA no.: RILM no.: 95:4810dd
Books (monographs)
- The Influence of European Literary and Artistic Representations of the ‘Orient’ on Western Orchestral Compositions, ca. 1840-1920: From Oriental Inspiration to ‘Exotic’ Orchestration
Books (edited)
- The Musicians’ and Songwriters’ Yearbook 2007 (including chapter introductions and various essays) (London: Adam & Charles Black, 2006). With a Foreword by Peter Reichardt, former Chairman and CEO of EMI Music Publishing. ISBN 10: 0-7136-7531-4.
- The Musicians’ and Songwriters’ Yearbook 2008 (including chapter introductions and various essays) (London: A&C Black, 2007). With a Foreword by John Kennedy, OBE, former President of Universal Music International, and Chairman of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. ISBN 10: 0-7136-8472-0.
Chapters in Books
- “The Complete Songwriter/Producer”, invited chapter in Heart & Soul: Revealing the Craft of Songwriting, ed. Chris Bradford (London: Sanctuary Publishing, 2005)] ISBN 10: 1-8607-4641-1. Published in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Ivor Novello Awards, being an Official Guide to Songwriting, commissioned by the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters.
Articles – academic and general
- “Nostalgia, Exoticism and Brilliant Colour”, Arts Rondo (Melbourne) (Winter, 1992).
- “Orientalism” (An abbreviated version of the article “Orientalism: Counterpart of the Gothic in Nineteenth-Century Artistic Inspiration”),Udolpho, vol.26 (Autumn, 1996), 14-17. ISSN 1350-7796.
- “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. [FoMRHI Quarterly was the Journal of the Fellowship of Makers and Researchers of Historic Instruments.]
- “Musical Instruments Evocative of the Ancient Orient”, FoMRHI Quarterly, no.99 (April, 2000), 21-30, Comm.1707.
- “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.
- “Exoticism Globalised: The Forgotten Roots of World Music”, in Music Business Journal (April–June, 2001).
Articles – business and technology
- 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).
Radio Programmes
Public Lectures
Verse, Essays and Belles-Lettres
Other publications and roles
- MANAGING EDITORSHIP, Music Business Journal (2001–2006) ISSN 1473-6233 (co-founder).
- SERIES EDITORSHIP, The Academy Popular Music Tuition Series (36 vols.) (ca.11,000 pages) (Academy Music Services UK, 2003–2005; now updated annually) (original commissioner).
- CONSULTANT EDITORSHIP, The Musicians’ and Songwriters’ Yearbook (2007 and 2008 edns.) (London: Adam & Charles Black) (founder).