“Mum dropped me off at school at Beauty Point Public School and I saw the school band rehearsing. I was this little kindy kid, peering round the door. I dragged mum in and said, ‘I want to play’,” she said.

“She got me violin lessons and I did that for four years. I guess it was apparent there was talent there. Well, mum said so — but then mums always say that!”

Now 35, Little is set to move to Los Angeles, having been awarded a year-long partial scholarship by Oscar-nominated film composer Alan Silvestri — who wrote the music for Steven Spielberg’s new film, Ready Player One — to study a Master of Music in Screen Scoring at the University of Southern California (USC).

“The scholarship is offered to the top-ranked applicant in the year, which is a big achievement as the course only accepts 20 applicants. I wasn’t expecting it at all,” she said.

“One thing that was really amazing was that Alan Silvestri wrote the music for Forrest Gump, which was the first film soundtrack I ever bought.

“I loved it so much I took it to my piano teacher and asked to learn it. So to get this scholarship was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I can’t believe this’,” she added.

“He wrote me a beautiful email offering advice and sharing some of his experiences. I wrote one back and told him what his music had meant to me.”

Little — who took up piano aged eight on the baby grand piano her great grandfather bought for her grandmother, and which she still owns today — was a “movie music boffin” as a child.

She devoured everything from Spielberg’s ET to musicals, to Disney (“I still love Tale As Old As Time from Beauty and the Beast). Even then she noted the association between the romantic orchestral music of Rachmaninoff with the lush scores of classic movies such as Gone With The Wind and Star Wars.

She studied music at high school and did composition for her HSC at SCECGS Redlands, spending weekends on the Sydney Conservatorium of Music Access Program, which offered tutoring to talented musicians from other high schools.

“You’d think after this I’d have studied music at university, but I decided I wanted to be a film director,” said Little. “It was there I started to realise that music and stories belonged together.”

During her film degree, Little saw an advert on the wall for co-ordinator at a sound studio, which allowed her to meet and assist composers.

Realising she wanted to compose professionally, it prompted her to embarked on a master of arts, specialising in screen composition, at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School.

Her work on Australia came about fortuitously. “They were looking for someone to do music programming, and someone recommended me,” she said.

It ended up being more collaborative than she could have imagined, with Little co-writing and providing vocals for the song By the Boab Tree.

“We were working on various drafts, co-writing with Baz, and I would sing the demos. It got to the point where it was like, ‘well, that’s the voice’.

“It was that natural evolution of circumstances that saw it become such a formative experience in my career.

“Working with those orchestras on such a big film, and with such an inspiring director, made me realise, ‘this is where I want to be’.

“Baz is such a creatively adventurous spirit. I remember I’d written this music and I thought it was alright, and he said ‘go bigger!’ It’s a great metaphor for how I should be thinking if I want to go out in the world and make a difference.”

After being inspired by Australia (in which she also performed a Celtic version of Waltzing Matilda), and as a nod to her Irish husband Peter Nawn and her own Irish ancestry, Little found a creative outlet in Celtic music.

She wrote and performed in shows, creating EPs and albums, “but realised I loved creating instead of performing the same music over and over”.

She will hone her craft further thanks to USC, where she hopes to rub shoulders with another musical hero, Thomas Newman, the composer behind American Beauty and The Horse Whisperer.

“USC has a Board of Councilors mentorship program and he is on the board, so I’m intending to try and apply. These are the sorts of opportunities that this place offers, and that’s what I’m excited about,” she said.

Little is aiming to raise $7000 to fund a portion of her tuition via crowd-funding site for the arts, the Australian Cultural Fund.

“It’s a platform for artists to fund whatever it may be — an album, festivals or development opportunities. It’s great because it’s tax deductible,” she said.

She will make the move to her new pad in downtown LA in August, and Nawn will stay behind with the couple’s dog, Puddles.

“Peter is an accountant with his own business.

“He has also developed an app called Easy Payslip for small biz clients to do payroll for employees. He’s very entrepreneurial. We’re both the kinds of people to say, ‘OK, let’s do this’, and we support one another,” she said.

While Mosman “will always be home”, Little is open to staying longer in LA if work dictates.

“One thing I’ve learned is don’t plan. I’d explored some options of going to London or LA before, but my dad passed away suddenly in 2011 and it changed my life trajectory for a while. But it also taught me to seize the day.

“At the end of the day, music is my passion, and when I am not manifesting it in my life I know something’s not right.”

Details: australianculturalfund.org.au/projects/studying-screen-scoring-usc-los-angeles

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