ASO remembers Jane Little in song

Little was a founding member of the Atlanta Youth Symphony Orchestra and held a world record for longest tenure spent with a professional orchestra.

Photo credit: Photo courtesy ASO

On May 19, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra honored double bassist and founding ASO member Jane Little, who collapsed on stage during a performance on May 15. Little passed away later that night at Grady Hospital. She was 87 years old.

In 1945, Little was a founding member of the Atlanta Youth Symphony Orchestra, which became the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. After 71 years she held a world record for longest tenure a player has spent with a professional orchestra. ASO bassist Michael Kurth has since honored Little with a moving tribute on artsATL, while the ASO honored her with a song.

As a prelude to the ASO’s May 19 performance with Christina and Michelle Naughton, Executive Director Jennifer Barlament offered kind words and expressed the joy the orchestra had known with Little and the sadness they felt after her passing. The ASO followed with a performance of “Nimrod” from Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations, a moving piece made more powerful by the circumstances. The ASO’s members inhabited the song as if they were breathing and feeling as one — their emotions and music filling the room with a beautiful intensity. It was an overwhelming scene. After the last vibrating note was silenced, the house lights were lowered to reveal just a spotlight on Little’s former chair with a single flower gracing her seat. The silence that followed was as emotive as the music that preceded it, her presence once again filling the room with beauty.

Little’s family has asked that, in her honor, donations be made to the ASO’s Musicians’ Endowment Fund.