Jonathan Dove
Jonathan Dove is one of Britain's leading composers for opera, chamber music, theatre - and the community. Born in 1959, Dove studied music at Cambridge and composition with Robin Holloway. Raised in a family of architects, Dove was selected to write the music for two of London's biggest building projects, the opening ceremonies of the Millennium Dome and the fanfare for the Millennium Bridge. His works include Flight, premiered by the Glyndebourne Touring Opera company and then at the Glyndebourne Festival, about the daily life of an airport; Pig and Greed for the English National Opera Studio; Buzz on the Moon, about Buzz Aldrin's trip to the moon; a two-night adaptation of Wagner's Ring for the City of Birmingham Touring Opera; The Far Theatricals of Day, based on the poetry of Emily Dickinson; Figures in the Garden to celebrate Mozart's bicentenary; and When She Died, an opera about Diana, Princess of Wales created for Britain's Channel 4 television network and seen by one million viewers. Dove has also made a speciality out of community opera: works written for and performed by a mixture of professional singers with a community's children and amateurs: Tobias and the Angel, The Palace in the Sky, and In Search of Angels, which included a cast of six hundred amateur singers. Artistic Director of the Spitalfields Festival from 2001-2006, Dove continues to be the music adviser to the Almeida Theatre, a relationship that began in 1990. His vast theatre music includes the Almeida productions of Medea and Hamlet, both of which toured to Broadway, as well as Phèdre, Plenty, and the chamber opera L'Altra Euridice; and Mother Courage and Dark Materials at the National. Dove also composes for film, as well as Clare Whistler's dance company, DanceArt.
