Jonathan Little

Jonathan David Little was co-founder and Managing Editor of "Music Business Journal" (2001-05) and Series Editor of the 36-volume Academy Popular Music Tuition Series (2002-06). In 2011, the City of London's ancient Musicians' Company (established in 1500) bestowed upon him one of their highest honours - the prestigious Collard Fellowship - awarded to "a professional musician of outstanding ability" for "undoubted excellence in composition, research or performance".

Jonathan was appointed first Consultant Editor to A&C Black's flagship volume of musical reference in the UK, the "Musicians' and Songwriters' Yearbook", steering it through its 2007 and 2008 editions. He additionally contributed an important series of articles on the future of music to the Hudson Institute's "American Outlook" and the British Academy's "Heart & Soul: Revealing the Craft of Songwriting" (published to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Ivor Novello Awards).

Substantial academic and general monographs recently published include: "The Influence of European Literary and Artistic Representations of the 'Orient' on Western Orchestral Compositions, ca. 1840-1920: From Oriental Inspiration to 'Exotic' Orchestration" (492pp. incl. 45 plates), together with its companion volume, "Literary Sources of Nineteenth-Century Musical Orientalism" (420pp. incl. 79 plates) (Lewiston, NY; Queenston, Ontario; Lampeter, Wales: EMP, 2010-11). (This comprehensive 2-volume, 950-page study of Musical Orientalism won an Authors' Foundation / Royal Literary Fund Award for 2011.) Also in progress is a major technical work on the art of musical composition.

Born in Australia, Jonathan studied Composition and Performance at the University of Melbourne, winning the Lady Turner Exhibition for overall excellence. He holds the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in music for his research into the development of "exotic" 19th- and 20th-century orchestration. Prior to joining the University of Chichester in 2006, Jonathan was Principal of the Academy of Contemporary Music in Guildford - 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).

Jonathan is also an award-winning composer. In 2008, the first compilation album of his music was placed by American critic and recording historian Lynn Rene Bayley in her Top 5 classical releases for the year (in Fanfare's "Want List 2008"). Recordings have been supported by the Foundation for New Music (USA), the Kenneth Leighton Trust (UK), and in 2009 Jonathan became an inaugural recipient of the MBF Professional Development Award - a major new award instituted by the UK music business's own charity, the Musicians' Benevolent Fund. In 2012 he was awarded a PRS for Music Foundation / Bliss Trust Composer Bursary, and on the strength of his writings and musical output to date, he won The John Clementi Collard Fellowship in Music of The Worshipful Company of Musicians. The inaugural Collard Fellowship was awarded in 1931 to Herbert Howells, and since then the fellowship has been offered on average every three years in open competition among Britain's leading performers, composers, conductors and scholars, aged from 27 to 50.

Jonathan's string and orchestral album, "Polyhymnia", was nominated in Spain for "Best Album of the Year" (2012), and his most recent choral album, "Woefully Arrayed" (2017), was part-sponsored by an Australian Council "Individual International Arts Project Award" (2015-17). In 2015, he also won a Royal Philharmonic Society / BBC Radio 3 "ENCORE Choral" Award, while in 2017, he received Special Distinction in one of the concert music world's most esteemed awards - the Rudolf Nissim Prize - for "Best Original Concert Music Score" (USA).

He is currently Professor of Music Composition and Music History at the University of Chichester, UK.

Further reference:

http://www.jonathanlittle.org

See also:

http://britishmusiccollection.org.uk/composer/jonathan-david-little

http://www.chi.ac.uk/staff/professor-jonathan-little