David T. Little

“I think the kind of pieces he’s doing are much more real than what most of young composers are doing,” says Osvaldo Golijov, a Grammy-winning composer to whom Lincoln Center devoted a festival in 2006 and who has mentored Little since 2001.  “He’s not an ivory tower kind of guy or a polite guy when it comes to music, even though he’s a very nice guy… What comes through in every single piece… is the dramatic instinct, the incredible sense of pacing, of the shift of gears.  On one hand, there is something very modern about him, but on the other hand, he has this knack for theater and drama that Verdi had and the great operatic composers had.”

from Rocking Classics by Ronni Reich
NJ Star Ledger, July 9, 2009

Dog Days (2009-2010)

“Dog Days,” a black comedy with music by David T. Little and libretto by Royce Vavrek, was dramatically wild and at times exhilarating, a post-apocalyptic story about a family of five.  The young daughter adopts a dog, which seems to be a young man in a costume. Mr. Little’s rustling, raunchy, eclectic score showed real imagination.”

- Anthony Tommasini New York Times
May 7, 2010

…”Dog Days,” [is] based on a short story by Judy Budnitz, in which a family in postapocalyptic survival mode descends (or in some cases resists descending) into barbarism. Mr. Little’s writing is melodic and shapely, and the five singers… gave wrenching portrayals of a couple and their three children.”

- Allan Kozinn, New York Times
May 11, 2009

Soldier Songs (2004-2006)

“Soldier Songs Rocks.  … David T. Little brilliantly expounds upon the life of the soldier through three archetypal phases of life…His music is both complex and simple…using percussion liberally to utilising the simple sounds of a flute or clarinet to convey the enormous range of emotions the Soldier experiences.”

Buzz Belmont, Houston Chronicle Online
May 26, 2009

“Soldier Songs has the force of emotions tossed around, allowed to bruise each other and then served up raw.”

Bruce Hodges, Musicweb International
September 7, 2009

“Oh, this is cool, a piece by a younger composer named David T. Little about soldiers listening to hip-hop on their iPods, from a group of songs called Soldier Songs. It’s kind of an anti-war song cycle, and he’s one of a group of composers based around New York that I find really interesting.”

- Alex Ross, in The Onion’s A.V. Club
March 18, 2008

“Soldier Songs” – a theatrical cantata for solo baritone composed by David T. Little, who grew up listening to heavy metal, classical music and musical theater – also had a military theme, with driven, slashing figures juxtaposed with moments of melodic calm. The work, based on interviews with soldiers, opens with audio interviews with Vietnam veterans, and the libretto (written by Mr. Little) is based on their recollections. James Bobick vividly illuminated the narrative flow, from a child’s war fantasy to a grieving parent’s loss.”

- Vivien Schweitzer, New York Times
May, 13, 2008

“A compelling antiwar piece, David T. Little’s multimedia Soldier Songs, an oratorio-like song cycle, powerfully juxtaposed the Marine Corps creed (“my rifle is my friend,” “without my rifle I am useless”) against a soldier’s graphic retelling of a hideous roadside bombing.”

- D.L. Groover, Houston Press
June 28, 2007

“Composer David Little is not yet 30 and is still working on his Ph.D., yet his list of classical works is as long as your arm. If his latest, “Soldier Songs,” premiered on Friday by Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble at City Theatre on the South Side, is any indication, quality equals quantity in a big way. … Little’s compositional language is eclectic and diverse, encompassing 19th-century Romanticism and polytonality, percussive counterpoint and musical theatre lyricism, semi-tone tuning and diatonic harmonies. … “Soldier Songs” is not a loosely connected cycle, but a dramatic, theatrical solo cantata that builds to a heartrending climax… With each of the 11 songs as gripping as the last…(it is) a glowing paean to peace activism.”

- Eric Haines, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Monday, July 31, 2006

Composer David T. Little avoids many of the problems associated with political art in his one-hour “Soldier Songs” … Little focuses on the experience of war … not any particular conflict or the domestic political divisiveness of some wars. (The) selection and creation of his texts provides a variety of expressions — poignant, ironic and direct. …masterful.

- Mark Kanny, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Tuesday, August 1, 2006

sweet light crude (2007)

“It’s not every day that you see a composer leading his work from the drumkit, but that’s exactly what Little did for his sweet light crude (2007). Set to his own gothic poem relating a lover’s desperate pleas, Little built a soundscape of searing intensity, mixing techniques from rock ballads and free jazz. … Refreshingly, Little writes from his gut, not like he’s participating in an academic exercise. Keep an eye on him.”

- Pete Matthews, feastofmusic.com
April 6, 2008

“Also impressive was David T. Little’s “sweet light crude,” a passionate love song dedicated to oil.

-Sydney de Lapeyrouse, Phillyist.com
October, 25, 2007

Descanso (waiting) (2004-5)

“David T. Little’s ‘Descanso (waiting)’ proved the artistic standout of the evening. … An emotional-filled sonic poem for a small ensemble, ‘Descanso’ reverberated with haunting layers. The playful ring of ordinary wind chimes floated in and out of melancholic yet slightly dissonant melodies that rose and fell, intensifying then pulling back. ‘Descanso (waiting)’ was the perfect musical portrait of the swirl of contradictory emotions that surge when anticipating the loss of a loved one.”

-Jeanne Claire van Ryzin, Austin360.com
November 13, 2007

“David Little’s Descanso (waiting) refers to the Spanish tradition of weary pallbearers placing a small cross, flowers or a stone on a spot where they stopped to rest. These markers then become sites of reflection for future travelers. Written for eighth blackbird, Little disperses the group around a darkened room, the players’ lighted music stands as little “markers” – the tiny oases in the title. As each gesture appears, it is passed around in turn, in the same way that friends might gently hold each other in grief. Eighth blackbird’s delicate yet fiery wizardry somehow evoked the composer’s reflections on sorrow and mourning…”

- Bruce Hodges, musicweb-international.com
May, 2006

Valuable Natural Resources (2004)

The high point of the concert was the premiere of the work “Valuable Natural Resources” of US American David T. Little (born 1978), (composed for) the symposium…(it)…illuminated and indispensable level of the topic (of Nature and Music): the exploitation of nature by humans, in addition, the exploitation of humans as a part of nature.

- C. Hoppe, Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten
September 30, 2004

Descanso (after omega) (2003)

“Situated just after or before these displays of rhythmic intensity were a pair of acoustic works of resonant emotional intensity. “Descanso/ After Omega” by David T. Little – which I liked a great deal – (is) for saxophones, piano, vibraphone (frequently bowed) and crystal glasses. The crystal glasses were played behind the audience, providing a backdrop of an invisible drone for the staggered melodic phrases from the instruments at the front of the performance space. The texture had an aching beauty hinting at the deep agony of loss.”

- Devin Hurd, Hurd Audio
April 25, 2007

SCREAMER! – a three-ring blur for orchestra (2002)

“David T. Little’s “Screamer” from 2002 evokes the multi-sensory world of a circus with what he calls a “three-ring blur” for orchestra. In the space of a few minutes, diverse melodic ideas charge into the fray to brilliant sonic effect; a droopy, scratchy recording of “The Stars and Stripes Forever” pops up now and then (as the composer explains, circus bands used to strike up that march as a distraction whenever an accident occurred). Given the pileup of ideas and a lot of humor in the piece, it sounds like something Charles Ives would be writing if he were around now…

-Tim Smith, Baltimore Sun’s Clef Notes Blog
March 19, 2010

“David Little’s 2002 “Screamer, a Three-ring Blur for Orchestra” is a hilarious homage to the circus. This 26-year old composer captured – and augmented – the high spirits, drama and chaos of big-top happenings in his high-speed, multilayered, orchestral frolic.

Little’s musical high jinks with pie-tin trumpet mutes and Whoopee Cushions, were matched by the orchestra’s cello section in their yearly prank – this time wearing Day-Glo clown wigs, red bulb noses and balloons tied to cello scrolls.

Little’s work was repeated at Sunday’s Free Family Concert, an idea suggested by an audience member during Saturday’s after-concert “talk-back.”

- Phyllis Rosenblum, Santa Cruz Sentinel

“That entire evening was a winner, opening with David Little’s hilarious Screamer!–a three-ring blur for orchestra, a five-minute laugh riot, complete with whoopee cushions, aluminum pie-plate trumpet mutes and cellists in clown attire.”

- Scott MacClelland, Santa Cruz Metro

Sunday Morning Trepanation (2002)

“I was completely gripped by David T. Little’s ‘Sunday Morning Trepanation,’ for mixed quartet and CD playback, which equates contemporary religion with the drilling of holes in the skull. This ultra-dissonant composer, who doubles as a heavy-metal drummer, is coming to Princeton in the fall, and every bad-ass new-music ensemble in the city will want to play him.”

­- Alex Ross, The New Yorker

Come Here To Me (2003)

“The beautiful trio move to sometimes urgent, sometimes languid music…[which] becomes a clanking, almost industrial array of chains and noise, with a distant flute in the background.”

- Ben Dowell, The Stage, Edinburgh

“Come Here to Me is…a precisely realized trio of choreographies from Michigan’s Terpsichore’s Kitchen Dance Theatre that quietly presents itself with a professional intensity and lack of self-consciousness that’s refreshing.”

- Jodi Essery www.hour.ca

how we got here (2003)

“how we got here is an exquisite and slightly terrifying work which perambulates through a number of chimerical episodes, each comprised of sharp percussive dashes evolving and devolving across an acrid harmonic terrain. ”

- Alex Rose, Hotel St. George Press
Winter, 2007

“An equally good match between music and dance came in (Aimee) McDonald’s “How We Got Here,” in which McDonald, Sebaly and Jennifer Seguin seemed a pretty trio of primates, loping along the evolutionary trail to the percolating, primordial beat set for them by Ann Arbor composer David Little. ”

- Susan Nisbett, Ann Arbor News On-line
Friday, July 11, 2003

omega from recent distant portraits (2000)

Here are one listener’s picks for the mainstream: they seem to say, in today’s computer-speak, “Show me more like this”: … “omega…was a smoothly euphonious movement from composition fellow David T. Little’s 2000 recent distant portraits for string quartet. With a degree in percussion, Little still succeeded in finding idiomatic string style with tonal yet original harmonies.”

- Leslie Kandell, American Record Guide
Nov-Dec, 2001