About
The music of American composer David T. Little has been described as “dramatically wild…rustling, raunchy and eclectic,” showing “real imagination” by New York Times critic Anthony Tommasini, and his work “completely gripped” New Yorker critic Alex Ross: “every bad-ass new-music ensemble in the city will want to play him.” Little’s highly theatrical, often political work draws upon his experience as a rock drummer, and fuses classical and popular idioms to dramatic effect.
His music has been performed throughout the world—including in Dresden, London, Edinburgh, LA, Montreal, and at the Tanglewood, Aspen, MATA and Cabrillo Festivals—by such performers as the London Sinfonietta, Alarm Will Sound, eighth blackbird, So Percussion, ensemble courage, Dither, NOW Ensemble, PRISM Quartet, the New World Symphony, American Opera Projects, the New York City Opera, the Grand Rapids Symphony and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra under Marin Alsop. He has received awards and recognition from The American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, Meet The Composer, the American Music Center, the Harvey Gaul Competition, BMI, and ASCAP, and has received commissions from Carnegie Hall, the Baltimore Symphony, the Albany Symphony, the New World Symphony, Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, the University of Michigan, and Dawn Upshaw’s Vocal Arts program at the Bard Conservatory.
Recent and upcoming projects include the opera Dog Days (Robert Woodruff, director; Royce Vavrek, librettist), Haunt of Last Nightfall for Third Coast Percussion, RADIANT CHiLD for the New World Symphony, Conspiracy Theory for Darcy James Argue’e Secret Society–a new music big band–CHARM for the Baltimore Symphony under Marin Alsop, and Am I Born for the Brooklyn Philharmonic, Brooklyn Youth Chorus and soprano Mellissa Hughes, under Alan Pierson. His and the sky was still there was recently released Todd Reynold’s Outerborough, on Innova records.
In 2004, Little founded the amplified octet Newspeak, for which he is also the drummer and artistic director. Hailed as “potent” (TheRestIsNoise.com), “innovative” (New York Magazine), and “fierce” (Time Out New York), Newspeak explores the relationship of music and politics, while confronting head-on the boundaries between the classical and the rock traditions. A New Amsterdam Records artist, Newspeak released its first CD of commissioned works in November 2010, to critical acclaim. “You could call this punk classical,” one critic proclaimed, noting that the disc is “fearlessly aware, insightfully political (and) resolutely defiant.”
Little holds degrees from Susquehanna University (2001) and The University of Michigan (2002) and Princeton University (PhD, 2011), and his primary teachers have included Osvaldo Golijov, Paul Lansky, Steven Mackey, William Bolcom, and Michael Daugherty. He has taught music in New York City through Carnegie Hall’s Musical Connections program, served as the inaugural Digital Composer-in-Residence for the UK-based DilettanteMusic.com, and is currently the Executive Director of New York’s MATA Festival.
His music is published by Project Schott New York.