Composer David T. Little Announces 2026-2027 Highlights, Celebrating 20th Anniversary of Soldier Songs and More

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Composer David T. Little Announces 2026-2027 Highlights

Award-Winning New Opera What Belongs to You, featuring Karim Sulayman and
Alarm Will Sound, Receives New York Premiere Presented by NYU Skirball

20th-Anniversary Celebration of GRAMMY®-Nominated Soldier Songs Features a
Release by Opera Philadelphia, Out Veterans Day, November 11
Watch the Soldier Songs Trailer Here!

Dog Days Celebrates 15th Anniversary with Canadian Premiere
Produced by Tapestry Opera and Against the Grain Theatre in Toronto,
Australian Premiere and New Production by Australian Contemporary Opera Company in Melbourne, and an Anniversary Concert Co-Presented by the PROTOTYPE Festival and BRIC Arts Media in NYC

JFK Celebrates 10th Anniversary with East Coast Premiere by
Boston Modern Orchestra Project and Odyssey Opera

James Johnston Releases Recording of Little’s Hang Together, Inspired
by a Benjamin Franklin Quote, on October 23 ahead of the U.S. Midterm Elections

Carolina Performing Arts Presents GRAMMY®-Nominated Black Lodge, Featuring Vocalist Timur, Preceded by the Immersive BARDO, with Music from Little’s Album Dark Hymnal 

Additional Highlights Include Vinkensport at Boston University,
Hellhound at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music,
SIN-EATER by The Crossing and JACK Quartet at Month of Moderns,
a Portrait Concert Performed by Pianist Adam Sherkin at Piano Lunaire in Toronto,
Little’s Complete Piano Works Performed by James Johnston at the Ruckus412 New Music Festival, Little’s Return to the Orchestra with Imagine Utopia, and New Film Scores for Pentimento and You Were Never Alone

“… episodes of crushing sonic violence coexist with oases of serene lyrical beauty
for an overall sense of smoldering, luxuriant noise…” – The New York Times

“… a hope for the future of opera…” – The Washington Post 

“Daring brilliance… unforgettable…” – Opera Magazine

“Be in no doubt, this is a major work by a composer at the top of his game.” – Musical America

davidtlittle.com

 

New York, NY (October 14, 2026) – A natural musical storyteller with “a knack for overturning musical conventions” (The New York Times), composer David T. Little is known for stage, concert, and screen works permeated with eclectic influences and the power of the unexpected. Little readily probes the deep corners of human psychology, invoking political, historical, spiritual, and social themes as pathways for exploring the human condition. 

The 2026-2027 season features several major milestones for Little’s opera catalog, including the 20th anniversary of Soldier Songs (2006), marked by a release of the film by Opera Philadelphia; the 15th anniversary of Dog Days (2012), receiving its Canadian premiere in a new production by Tapestry Opera and Against the Grain Theatre, directed by Michael Hidetoshi Mori, with new productions to follow in Bremen, Germany, and Melbourne, Australia, as part of the 2027 anniversary, and a special 15th-anniversary concert co-presented by the PROTOTYPE Festival and BRIC Arts Media in NYC; and finally, the 10th anniversary of JFK (2016), which will be performed in its East Coast premiere by Boston Modern Orchestra Project and Odyssey Opera, and subsequently recorded for commercial release. Among his newest works, SIN-EATER (2023) will be performed by The Crossing and JACK Quartet as part of The Crossing’s annual Month of Moderns, and What Belongs to You (2021), winner of the 2025 MCANA Award, receives its New York premiere presented by NYU Skirball in spring 2027.

Additional season highlights include Vinkensport (2010) at Boston University, his GRAMMY®-nominated Black Lodge (2019) preceded by BARDO (2024) at Carolina Performing Arts, Hellhound (2013) at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, a portrait concert of Canadian premieres by Adam Sherkin with Piano Lunaire in Toronto, Little’s complete piano works performed by James Johnston at the Ruckus412 New Music Festival in Pittsburgh, and the premieres of new film scores for Pentimento (2026) and You Were Never Alone (2026).

Little enters the season following the June release, on Bright Shiny Things, of the world-premiere recording of his award-winning opera What Belongs to You (2021), featuring GRAMMY® Award-winning tenor Karim Sulayman and Alarm Will Sound, conducted by Alan Pierson. Music videos are available for “It must have been summer” and “The best of me was words.” 

On Thursday, September 24, 2026, Yana Mann performed excerpts from Little’s Eleven Fragments for the Book of Dreams (2017) at Yamaha Music London, alongside British DJ and producer Betoko, who created a track live from the sounds of her voice. On Monday, September 28, 2026, Amelia Watkins and Mila Henry premiered Little’s To A Stranger (2010) in a new version for soprano at the Harvard Club in New York City. Little’s work for film took center stage with the premiere of his new score for Hunter Gause’s Pentimento (2026) at the Hamptons International Film Festival on October 7 and 9, 2026. The film follows an artist’s assistant whose embarrassing mistake forces him to confront his own creative stagnation.

From October 23 to 25, 2026, the Fringe Festival presents Little’s Vinkensport (chamber version, 2018) in a new production directed by Lauren Lenz and conducted by Ian Henscheid, with music direction by Allison Voth, at Boston University Studio One. Vinkensport, or The Finch Opera, is among Little’s first operatic works and an early example of his many celebrated collaborations with librettist Royce Vavrek. This playful work, about a trivial contest and the revealing light it sheds on its participants, has been described as “a portrait gallery of quirky, eccentric, and colorful characters” (Musical America) and “an opportunity to appreciate the lighter comedic style of the industrious Little-Vavrek team” (Classical Voice North America).

Little’s new score for You Were Never Alone (2026), an episode from the Final Transmissions found-footage horror anthology, written and directed by Michael J. Epstein and Sophia Cacciola, premiered at the GenreBlast Film Festival in Winchester, Virginia, on Saturday, September 5, 2026, and was screened at the Unnamed Footage Festival on Friday, October 2, 2026. The film will next be featured at the Nightmare in the Ozarks Film Festival in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, on Friday, October 23, 2026.

Also on October 23, pianist James Johnston releases a recording of Hang Together (2022), a short solo piano work by Little, inspired by Benjamin Franklin’s historic call for solidarity: “We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.” A longtime friend and collaborator of the composer, and founding member of Little’s intrepid ensemble Newspeak, Johnston releases the recording in advance of the November 3 U.S. midterm elections. Hang Together was originally commissioned in 2022 for Lior Willinger’s Active Listening project.

On Friday, October 30, 2026, Carolina Performing Arts presents Little’s GRAMMY®-nominated Black Lodge (2019) as part of a special Halloween event, preceded by Sandra Powers’ ghoulish immersive performance installation, BARDO, set to a score by Little and released as an album titled Dark Hymnal (2024) on Cantaloupe Music. Audiences are invited to enter BARDO, a haunting, liminal place between death and rebirth, before the evening culminates in Black Lodge, Little’s dark Lynchian goth-rock opera about a tormented writer trapped in the nightmarish Bardo, where he is forced to confront the darkest moment of his life again and again. The performance features vocalist Timur, who starred in the opera film, with his band, Timur and the Dime Museum, and the Isaura String Quartet. Black Lodge has drawn praise for its “indefatigable goth aplomb” (The New York Times), and Neue Musikzeitung wrote that “Little’s music sets the nightmare to music with virtuosity: it is always thrilling and always disturbing.” 

Also in keeping with Halloween, on Friday, October 30, 2026, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music performs Little’s Hellhound (2013), his meditation on the myth of Robert Johnson at the crossroads, in a New Music Ensemble concert featuring Shara Nova, conducted by Edwin Outwater. The program also includes a variety of works written in the 20th and 21st centuries, including György Kurtág’s A kis csáva, Christopher Cerrone’s The Night Mare, and Sarah Kirkland Snider’s Unremembered.

Now marking the 20th anniversary of Soldier Songs, Little continues to reflect on one of his most enduring works. Premiered in 2006, the opera drew praise from Musical America for “the imaginative way he draws on his varied musical interests to produce arresting and coherent works.” Based on extensive interviews with friends and family who served in the military, the work has been presented by Los Angeles Opera, Atlanta Opera, San Diego Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, PROTOTYPE Festival, Beth Morrison Projects, and internationally at the Holland Festival, among others. A film adaptation of Soldier Songs, produced for the Opera Philadelphia Channel, earned a 2022 GRAMMY® Award nomination, an International Opera Award nomination, and a 2022 OPERA America Award. 

In celebration of the anniversary of Soldier Songs, the film receives a new digital premiere on Wednesday, November 11, 2026. The film, directed by and starring baritone Johnathan McCullough, offers audiences around the world an intimate, cinematic encounter with Little’s powerful examination of war, memory, and trauma. Blending opera, theater, and rock-infused concert music, Little’s work explores the ways popular culture can shape perceptions of war—and the profound psychological consequences of experiencing it firsthand. “Soldier Songs remains as urgent and resonant today as when David first created it 20 years ago,” said Anthony Roth Costanzo, General Director & President of Opera Philadelphia. “Making this extraordinary film available for free gives audiences everywhere a chance to experience this work that weaves a complex narrative about war, the people who fight it, and the ways its effects continue long after the battlefield.”

On Tuesday, November 17, 2026, Piano Lunaire presents a portrait concert of Little’s music in Toronto, featuring pianist Adam Sherkin in the Canadian premieres of Hang Together (2022), Accumulation of Purpose (2017), Elegy (monsters are real) (2016), and Hellhound (2013) with violinist Roan Ma.

In eight performances from November 18 to 29, 2026, Tapestry Opera and Against the Grain Theatre co-produce the Canadian premiere of Little’s Dog Days (2012), with libretto by Royce Vavrek after the short story by Judy Budnitz, at the Nancy & Ed Jackman Performance Centre. These performances kick off a busy season for the “groundbreaking American classic” (The New York Times), which celebrates its 15th anniversary in 2027. On Sunday, January 3, 2027, Gather NYC presents Duo Étrange in the world premiere of a new version of Mirror Mirror, an aria from Dog Days, and on Saturday, January 23, 2027, PROTOTYPE Festival presents a special anniversary concert at BRIC Arts Media in NYC with performers from the original production. New productions from Melbourne’s Australian Contemporary Opera Company and Theater Bremen in Germany will follow in 2027. The work follows thirteen-year-old Lisa and her family as they struggle to survive in a near-future America unraveling under the pressures of war, hunger, and emotional collapse. As food disappears and hope erodes, each member of the family confronts the limits of their humanity in different ways. Their fragile world is further disrupted by the arrival of Prince, a mysterious man in a dog suit begging for scraps. By turns brutal, darkly funny, and deeply moving, Dog Days is a powerful meditation on survival, morality, and the animal instincts that emerge in times of crisis. 

On Saturday, March 13, 2027, Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) and Odyssey Opera present the East Coast premiere of Little’s JFK (2016), conducted by Gil Rose at New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall. With a libretto by Royce Vavrek, the work centers on John and Jacqueline Kennedy during their final night in Fort Worth, tracing the mix of public pressure and private reflection that defined the moment. The opera moves between memory, conversation, and the looming demands of the next day, offering a close look at two people navigating history as it closes in around them. BMOP will subsequently record the work for commercial release.

On Saturday, April 3, 2027, pianist James Johnston performs Little’s complete piano works at the Ruckus412 New Music Festival at Chatham University in Pittsburgh. The program features the world premiere of Little’s In Pieces (2027) for solo piano, as well as Hang Together (2022), Accumulation of Purpose (2017), and Elegy (monsters are real) (2016).

NYU Skirball presents the New York premiere of Little’s What Belongs to You (2021) on Thursday, April 15, 2027, and Saturday, April 17, 2027, featuring GRAMMY® Award-winning tenor Karim Sulayman in a role written for him, joined by Alarm Will Sound under Alan Pierson, with direction by Mark Morris. Drawn from Garth Greenwell’s celebrated debut novel, Little’s opera for solo tenor and chamber orchestra follows an American teacher in Bulgaria and Mitko, the young man with whom he becomes entangled, through desire, shame, and the distance between two people who continue to return to one another. The opera premiered in September 2024 at the Modlin Center for the Arts in Richmond, Virginia, where the world-premiere recording was captured ahead of its June 2026 release on Bright Shiny Things, with liner notes by Alex Ross. Limelight, which named the album an Editor’s Choice, wrote, “Tender and confronting, it roughs you up while giving you a lesson in music-theatre.” BBC Music Magazine praised Sulayman’s “finely concentrated performance… with an unflinching focus on the narrator’s vulnerability”; Opera Magazine wrote that, with his “exquisite tenor in rapturous form, and seemingly tireless despite the huge demands placed upon it in this live recording of the premiere, he sings with formidable conviction and consummate control of expressive line,” and Gramophone observed that Pierson’s Alarm Will Sound “seems to be able to handle anything. And they do.” Parterre Box described the music as “tender, lyric, and full of heartbreak without being maudlin,” calling the album “a rare recording that gives a nearly complete impression of the experience of a work.” Musical America proclaimed that “this is a major work by a composer at the top of his game” and described the recording as “thrillingly immediate.”

On Saturday, June 19, 2027, The Crossing presents Little’s SIN-EATER at the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia, PA, as part of its annual Month of Moderns festival, performing alongside the JACK Quartet. In SIN-EATER, Little holds a mirror up to modern society through the ancient practice of paying the poor to ritualistically “eat” the sins of the rich. Upon a privileged person’s death, a loaf of bread would be placed atop the corpse and then consumed by a humbler member of the community, thus taking on the deceased person’s guilty deeds while he or she passed on to the next life unburdened. In this “ritual grotesquerie,” Little draws parallels to modern-day “sin-eaters”—soldiers, first responders, essential workers, social media content moderators—who absorb the ills of society, enabling others to lead safer, healthier, and more oblivious lives. Over the course of the 70-minute choral work, Little weaves together texts from a wide range of eras to illuminate the connections across time: Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (French, 1755-1826), Stephen Crane (American, 1871-1900), Wilfred Owen (English, 1893-1918), Harold McGee (American, b. 1951), Claude McKay (Jamaican-American, 1890-1948), Anne Elizabeth Moore (American, b. 1971), Jonathan Swift (Irish, 1667-1745), and others. The work will be recorded for future release. 

On Tuesday, June 29, 2027, the Berlin Academy of American Music (BAAM), lead commissioner of the work, presents the world premiere of Little’s Imagine Utopia at the Konzerthaus Berlin. Co-commissioned by the Aspen Music Festival, American Composers Orchestra, River Oaks Chamber Orchestra, and Mid-Atlantic Symphony, the work is a centerpiece of the inaugural Berlin Transatlantic Music Festival, which celebrates American music and transatlantic relations between Germany and the U.S. Garrett Keast conducts the BAAM Orchestra in the premiere. This new orchestral work starts from the idea that, since George Orwell’s 1984 captured our imaginations, we have collectively been stuck in a dystopian mindset. Imagine Utopia will seek to push back on these dystopian visions, terrain well-explored in Little’s prior works, imagining a brighter future rather than a darker one, because if you can’t imagine it, you can’t build it.

David T. Little 2026-2027 Season Calendar

Saturday, September 5, 2026
You Were Never Alone [Film Score World Premiere]
GenreBlast Film Festival | Winchester, VA
Link: www.genreblast.com 

Thursday, September 24, 2026
Yana Mann Performs Excerpts from Eleven Fragments for the Book of Dreams
Yamaha Music London | London, UK

Monday, September 28, 2026
Amelia Watkins and Mila Henry Premiere To A Stranger [Version for Soprano]
Harvard Club | New York, NY

Friday, October 2, 2026
You Were Never Alone
Unnamed Footage Festival | Virtual
Link: unnamedfootagefestival.com 

Wednesday, October 7, 2026 at 5:30 pm
Friday, October 9, 2026 at 2:30 pm
Pentimento [World Premiere]
Hamptons International Film Festival
Link: www.hamptonsfilmfest.org/ 

Friday, October 23, 2026 at 7:30 pm
Saturday, October 24, 2026 at 2:00 pm
Saturday, October 24, 2026 at 7:30 pm
Sunday, October 25, 2026 at 2:00 pm
Fringe Festival Presents Vinkensport
Boston University Studio One | Boston, MA
Link: www.bu.edu/cfa/music/opera/fringe-festival/ 

Friday, October 23, 2026 at 10:20 pm
You Were Never Alone
Nightmare in the Ozarks Film Festival
City Auditorium | Eureka Springs, AR
Link: www.nightmareintheozarks.com/ 

Friday, October 23, 2026
Hang Together [Recording Release]
James Johnston, piano
Link: https://www.jamesjohnstonkeys.com/ 

Friday, October 30, 2026 at 7:00 pm
Carolina Performing Arts Presents Black Lodge and BARDO
Memorial Hall | Chapel Hill, NC
Link: www.carolinaperformingarts.org/events/blacklodgeandbardo/ 

Friday, October 30, 2026 at 7:00 pm
San Francisco Conservatory of Music New Music Ensemble Presents Hellhound
Osher Salon | San Francisco, CA
Link: www.sfcm.edu/experience/performances/sfcm-new-music-ensemble-concert/20261030 

Sunday, November 1, 2026 at 12:00 pm
Rhythms in the Garden with the Iris Percussion Quartet, performing Speak Softly: for four percussionists playing sticks of varying bigness
Arnold Arboretum | Boston, MA
Link: https://arboretum.harvard.edu/event/rhythms-in-the-garden-with-the-iris-percussion-quartet/

Tuesday, November 3, 2026 at 7:30 pm
Conservatory Wind Symphony Concert performing East Coast Attitude
White Recital Hall, University of Missouri-Kansas City | Kansas City, MO
Link: https://calendar.umkc.edu/conservatory/event/50327-conservatory-wind-symphony-concert

Wednesday, November 11, 2026
Opera Philadelphia
Soldier Songs [Film Release]
Link: www.youtube.com/operaphila

Tuesday, November 17, 2026 at 7:30 pm
Pianist Adam Sherkin Performs Hang Together, Accumulation of Purpose, Elegy (monsters are real), and Hellhound (with Roan Ma, violin) [Canadian Premieres]
Piano Lunaire | Toronto, ON
Link: www.pianolunaire.org/alittleportrait  

Wednesday, November 18, 2026 at 7:30 pm
Thursday, November 19, 2026 at 7:30 pm
Saturday, November 21, 2026 at 4:00 pm
Sunday, November 22, 2026 at 2:00 pm 
Wednesday, November 25, 2026 at 7:30 pm 
Thursday, November 26, 2026 at 7:30 pm 
Saturday, November 28, 2026 at 4:00 pm
Sunday, November 29, 2026 at 2:00 pm 
Tapestry Opera and Against the Grain Theatre Present Dog Days [Canadian Premiere]
Nancy & Ed Jackman Performance Centre | Toronto, ON
Link: www.atgtheatre.com/upcoming/dog-days/ 

Sunday, January 3, 2027 at 11:00 am
Gather NYC Presents Duo Étrange in Mirror Mirror [World Premiere, Version for Soprano and Cello]
Jazz Cultural | New York, NY
Link: tickets.venuepilot.com/e/duo-etrange-soprano-cello-2027-01-03-gathernyc-jazzcultural-new-york-ac3a94

Saturday, January 23, 2027 at 7:00 pm
PROTOTYPE Festival and BRIC Arts Media Co-Present Dog Days: 15th Anniversary Concert
BRIC Arts Media | New York, NY
Link: www.prototypefestival.org/shows/dog-days-15th-anniversary 

2027 (Dates to be Announced)
Dog Days [Australian Premiere]
Australian Contemporary Opera Company | Melbourne, Australia
Link: www.acoco.org.au 

Saturday, March 13, 2027 at 7:30 pm
Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) and Odyssey Opera Present JFK [East Coast Premiere]
New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall | Boston, MA
Link: www.necmusic.edu/events/boston-modern-orchestra-project-presents-jfk/ 

Saturday, April 3, 2027 at 7:00 pm
Pianist James Johnston Performs Little’s Complete Piano Works, including In Pieces [World Premiere]
Ruckus412 New Music Festival
Chatham University | Pittsburgh, PA
Link: www.jamesjohnstonkeys.com/look-listen 

Thursday, April 15, 2027 at 7:30 pm
Saturday, April 17, 2027 at 7:30 pm
What Belongs to You [New York Premiere]
NYU Skirball | New York, NY
Link: www.nyuskirball.org/performance/what-belongs-to-you/ 

Saturday, June 19, 2027 at 5:00 pm
The Crossing Presents SIN-EATER
The Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill | Philadelphia, PA
Link: www.crossingchoir.org/events/2026-27/love-mom1

Tuesday, June 29, 2027
Imagine Utopia [World Premiere]
Konzerthaus Berlin, Großer Saal | Berlin, Germany
Link: www.baamorch.de 

More About David T. Little
A natural musical storyteller with “a knack for overturning musical conventions” (The New York Times), GRAMMY® Award nominee David T. Little is a composer known for stage, concert, and screen works permeated with eclectic influences and the power of the unexpected. Commenting on his ability to infuse classical works with pop and rock influences, The New Yorker declared Little “not a ‘post-classical’ composer, but a classical composer with a surprisingly broad range.” Little readily probes the deep corners of psychology, invoking political, historical, spiritual, and social themes as pathways to explore the human condition. He has drawn acclaim for operas full of “emotional insight and charm” (The New York Times), including Dog Days, JFK, and the comedy Vinkensport, or The Finch Opera (all with libretto by Royce Vavrek), as well as his “extraordinarily powerful” (Los Angeles Times) opera Soldier Songs.

In 2024, Little’s Black Lodge was nominated for Best Opera Recording at the 66th Annual GRAMMY® Awards. The metal-infused opera film draws on the complex mythologies of David Lynch, William S. Burroughs, and Antonin Artaud. Featuring a libretto by celebrated poet Anne Waldman and performances by Timur and the Dime Museum and the Isaura String Quartet, Black Lodge was recorded remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. Its premiere at Opera Philadelphia as a hybrid production by Beth Morrison Projects and its subsequent soundtrack release on Cantaloupe Music drew critical acclaim. The New York Times lauded Black Lodge’s “indefatigable goth aplomb,” while Neue Musikzeitung proclaimed, “Little’s music sets the nightmare to music with virtuosity: it is always thrilling and always disturbing.”

Among his other key compositions are several large-scale instrumental works, including the “ghost play” Haunt of Last Nightfall for percussion quartet, and the string quartet AGENCY, companion works in which “episodes of crushing sonic violence coexist with oases of serene lyrical beauty for an overall sense of smoldering, luxuriant noise” (The New York Times). Yet other works explore life’s many highs: the ecstatic, almost manic energy of Spalding Gray, the Iggy Pop-inspired “joyous honk” of raw power, the wry humor of Speak Softly, the fond nostalgia of 1986, or the moonstruck aches of first love in JFK and What Belongs to You. His broad catalog speaks to the mix of light and dark that we experience in life, with works that are unafraid to invoke the mythical, bewitching, disturbing, surreal, or comedic.

In September 2024, Little unveiled What Belongs to You, an opera that “shakes your world” (Musical America), based on Garth Greenwell’s critically acclaimed debut novel, at the Modlin Center for the Arts at the University of Richmond (VA). Developed for tenor Karim Sulayman and Alarm Will Sound, the production featured the 20-piece ensemble led by Alan Pierson, with stage direction by renowned dancer, choreographer, and director Mark Morris, praised as “undeviating in his devotion to music” (The New Yorker) and for the “intense juxtapositions of lyrical radiance and a hard edge” (The New York Times) in his work. Little, composer and librettist for the piece, takes up Greenwell’s text as the starting point for an opera in his own inimitable style, approaching What Belongs to You as a chance to reflect an evolution in his compositional energy and a turning inward, looking back to look forward, leaning away from the rock bombast of Black Lodge toward something more introspective, informed more by Monteverdi than Metallica.

This comes on the heels of another major work, the searching theatrical choral piece SIN-EATER, premiered in Philadelphia by The Crossing and Bergamot Quartet in the fall of 2023, conducted by Donald Nally. Co-commissioned by The Crossing and Penn Live Arts, SIN-EATER is based on the ancient practice of paying the poor to ritualistically “eat” the sins of the rich, allowing the privileged to move on to the next life cleansed of their guilty deeds. Of the premiere, The Wall Street Journal said, “The theatricality of Mr. Little’s music, coupled with his original and adapted text, is so intense that it hardly needed the visual cues to have a shattering impact.”

Little set the tone for his operatic work with the 2006 premiere of Soldier Songs, drawing praise for “the imaginative way he draws on his varied musical interests to produce arresting and coherent works” (Musical America). Based on extensive interviews with military veterans, the work has been performed by Los Angeles Opera, Atlanta Opera, San Diego Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Beth Morrison Projects, PROTOTYPE Festival, Chicago Opera Theater, and internationally at the Holland Festival, among others. In 2022, Opera Philadelphia Channel’s film adaptation earned a GRAMMY® Award nomination, an OPERA America Award, and a nomination from the International Opera Awards.

Little’s many compositions for solo performer or small ensemble often include ghostly or spiritual themes: The “gloriously thunderous” (The Washington Post) Hellhound, composed for Maya Beiser, reflects on the legend of bluesman Robert Johnson selling his soul at the crossroads. Ghostlight, commissioned for Eighth Blackbird by The Kennedy Center, looks to surrealist art and fairy tales for their unspoken lessons, while dress in magic amulets, dark, from My feet is a meditation on Christ on the cross commissioned by The Crossing and International Contemporary Ensemble. Other works draw from literary sources or history, such as The Crocus Palimpsest, a Samuel Beckett-inspired work for solo cello composed for Matt Haimovitz. The solo piano suite Accumulation of Purpose draws inspiration from the activism of the Freedom Riders, while the earthen lack, a solo cello work commissioned by the London Sinfonietta and Bowling Green State University, looks to antiquity for lessons about mortality.

Little’s works for orchestra and large ensemble likewise interrogate the ways that we engage or grapple with the world in which we live: The Conjured Life, a centennial tribute to maverick composer Lou Harrison; CHARM, a celebration of city life commissioned by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; Haunted Topography and RADIANT CHiLD, which collectively explore the emotional landscapes of parenthood; and AM I BORN, a meditation on the ghosts of history, recorded by The Choir of Trinity Wall Street and recognized by Opera News as one of the best recordings of 2022. This June, the Berlin Academy of American Music will premiere Little’s latest orchestral work, Imagine Utopia, which seeks to push back on our obsession with dystopian visions, trying to imagine a brighter future, rather than a darker one, because if you can’t imagine it, you can’t build it.

His collaboration with Oscar-nominated filmmaker Bill Morrison, and a pandemic-era series of opera films—Vinkensport (2020), Soldier Songs (2021), and Black Lodge (2022)—connected Little’s operatic writing with his roots in film, opening new pathways for musical storytelling. He has since contributed music to Manicurism (2022) by Roel Wouters, Beside Myself (2024) by H. Paul Moon, Final Transmissions, “You Were Never Alone” (2026) by Michael J. Epstein and Sophia Cacciola, and Pentimento (2026) by Hunter Gause. He made his Off-Broadway debut, scoring Ash K. Tata’s production of The Tragedy of Coriolanus at Brooklyn’s Theatre for a New Audience, where his music was praised by The New York Sun as “stormy,” “suggest[ing] classic heavy metal remixed by a voguish producer.”

Little’s recorded catalog includes nearly 30 commercial releases from ensembles such as The Crossing, International Contemporary Ensemble, Newspeak, Third Coast Percussion, The Choir of Trinity Wall Street, Novus NY, Isaura String Quartet, the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME), and Timur and the Dime Museum; soloists Maya Beiser, Matt Haimovitz, James Johnston, Bruce Levingston, Nick Photinos, and Todd Reynolds; and singers James Bobick, Marnie Breckenridge, Cherry Duke, Blythe Gaissert, Eve Gigliotti, Mellissa Hughes, Michael Marcotte, David Adam Moore, Bec Plexus, Peter Tansits, and Lauren Worsham. These recordings have been released on such labels as New Amsterdam Records, PENTATONE, Sono Luminus, Bright Shiny Things, and Cantaloupe Music. In June 2026, Bright Shiny Things released the world-premiere recording of What Belongs to You, featuring Karim Sulayman and Alarm Will Sound under Alan Pierson to rave reviews.

Little is the founding artistic director and former drummer of the amplified chamber ensemble Newspeak. Hailed as “potent” (Alex Ross), “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 rock traditions. Newspeak released its first CD of commissioned works in November 2010, to critical acclaim. “You could call this punk classical,” Lucid Culture proclaimed, noting that the disc is “fearlessly aware, insightfully political (and) resolutely defiant.” The Washington Post wrote of its 2013 Washington, D.C., performance, “Newspeak pretty much rules.” Newspeak founded the New Music Bake Sale, which fostered the contemporary classical community annually in Brooklyn from 2009 to 2016. It has been featured at the Park Avenue Armory, on the Ecstatic Music Festival, on the 25th-anniversary Bang on a Can Marathon, and made its international debut at the 2014 Holland Festival. It has released four commercial recordings, with a fifth on the way.

Among Little’s many commissions are recent and upcoming works for The Metropolitan Opera / Lincoln Center Theater New Works Program, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Carnegie Hall, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra / Marin Alsop, London Sinfonietta, Kronos Quartet, The Crossing, Matt Haimovitz, Beth Morrison Projects, Alarm Will Sound, Opéra de Montréal, Fort Worth Opera, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Third Coast Percussion, and Dawn Upshaw / Bard Conservatory. In addition, his music has been presented by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Park Avenue Armory, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, International Festival of Arts and Ideas, Miller Theatre, Mostly Mozart Festival, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, PROTOTYPE Festival, Armitage Gone! Dance, Gaudeamus Muziekweek, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Singapore International Festival of Arts, the Oregon Bach Festival, and the Tanglewood, Aspen, MATA, Bang on a Can, and Cabrillo Festivals. Productions of his operas have been staged by North American companies in New York, Los Angeles, Houston, Philadelphia, Montréal, San Diego, Atlanta, Austin, Pittsburgh, San Antonio, Des Moines, and Fargo, as well as European companies in Amsterdam, Augsburg, Saarbrücken, Bielefeld, Braunschweig, and Schwerin.

Little has earned 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, Yaddo, BMI, and ASCAP, among others. He was a 2023 Individual Artist Fellow from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and a recipient of the Copland House Residency Award. He holds degrees from Susquehanna University (2001), the University of Michigan (2002), and Princeton University (PhD, 2011), where his research explored the intersection of music and politics. His book chapter “Seeking the Philosopher’s Stone: On the Alchemy of Time in Creative Dramaturgy” was published by Routledge in 2024 as part of New Dramaturgies of Contemporary Opera: The Practitioners’ Perspectives, edited by Jingyi Zhang.

His primary teachers have included (in reverse chronological order) Paul Lansky, Steven Mackey, Osvaldo Golijov, William Bolcom, Michael Daugherty, Patrick Long, and David Mattingly. Since 2015, Little has served on the composition faculty at Mannes-The New School in New York City, where he is currently program chair. He previously served as Executive Director of New York’s MATA Festival (2010-2012) and Director of Composition at Shenandoah Conservatory (2012-2015). He has served as Composer-in-Residence with Opera Philadelphia and Music-Theatre Group (2014-2017), Zürich’s Apples and Olives Festival (2016), and the Mizzou International Composers Festival (2020 and 2021). He held the 2016 William Bolcom Residency in Composition at the University of Michigan.

Little’s music is published by Boosey & Hawkes. Learn more at www.davidtlittle.com.

*Photo Credit: Daniel Welch

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