A new choral version of Jonathan Dove’s opera The Day After premieres on Friday 26 May 2017 with the English National Opera and continues until 31 May as part of their ENO Studio Live series at Lilian Baylis House Directed by Jamie Manton, a regular ENO Staff Director, and conducted by James Henshaw, ENO’s Chorus Master, The Day After tells the story of Phaeton, son of the Greek Sun God Phoebus. Challenging his father to let him drive the chariot of the Sun, Phaeton fancies himself a God, but his youthful impetuousness leads to disaster and tragedy. The production features designs by Camilla Clarke, winner of the 2015 Linbury Prize for Stage Design. Visit the ENO website for tickets and further information

As part of Global Voices, hosted by the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain, Jonathan Dove’s There Was a Child will be performed at the Royal Festival Hall on 17 April 2017. There Was a Child is modern oratorio commissioned by a mother whose son died tragically young, the work sets beautiful poems by a variety of authors, celebrating childhood, bringing comfort and offering hope. For tickets, visit the Southbank Centre website Six days prior, Jonathan begins a two-year appointment as associate composer with VOCES8 with a performance of The Passing of the Year on 11 April 2017 at St John’s Smith Square. The ensemble will perform a piece by Dove in each of its 240 concerts across the 2017/18 and 2018/19 seasons. It will also commission a new piece to be performed in 2019, the composer’s 60th birthday year, and will collaborate with Jonathan on performances, workshops and recordings. For more information and tickets, visit the St John’s Smith Square website

Jonathan Dove has been appointed as VOCES8’s associate composer. The ensemble will perform a piece by Dove in each of its 240 concerts across the 2017/18 and 2018/19 seasons. It will also commission a new piece to be performance in 2019, the composer’s 60th birthday year, and will collaborate with Dove on performances, workshops and recordings. Jonathan comments: “It is a joy to make music with these wonderful singers. Already our association has proved deeply rewarding, and the thought of writing for such a remarkable group of artists is very inspiring. I look forward to the work we will create and explore together, and the performances we will share.” Dove will provide mentoring to emerging composers, and performances of Dove’s larger scale works at the ensemble’s home of education at the Gresham Centre, London. Louise Hughes, who established the scheme with VOCES8, said it aimed ‘to broaden the impact in comparison to a one-off commission and offer even more potential for creating work of incredible intensity.’ She continued: ‘We hope that through performing and involving people as widely as possible through Jonathan’s compositions that we will inspire young composers to write their own works, especially in the choral idiom.’ Barnaby Smith, Artistic Director of VOCES8, commented: […]

Written as a birthday present for a friend, Jonathan Dove’s Who Wrote the Book of Love? receives its public premiere on 12 February at Kings Place, London. The work, which sets seventeen lyrics by Alasdair Middleton exploring the theme of love, will be performed by bass-baritone Philippe Sly and the Dante Quartet. These lyrics each resonate with difference poetic modes – Greek Love, Persian Love Gallant Love, Cold Love… Prior to the concert, Dove discusses his work in an interview with Peter Fribbins. Visit the Kings Place website for tickets and more information, and peer into the Book of Love two days before Valentine’s Day.

On 6 December, the BASCA British Composer Awards highlighted some of the best compositions premiered in the UK in the 12 months leading up to April 2016, across jazz, choral, sonic art, orchestral and beyond. The event, hosted by BBC Radio 3 presenters Sarah Walker and Andrew McGregor, took place at the British Film Institute in London with a speech given by British composer and broadcaster Gerard McBurney, who presented each of the main category winners with their awards. Jonathan Dove’s The Monster in the Maze continued its ongoing success by winning the award in the amateur and young performers category which also included the shortlisted composers Kate Whitley and John Pickard.  Most recently, Monster in the Maze was performed in Taichung where a new Chinese/Taiwanese translation was premiered in October 2016.  Jonathan could not be at the awards as Melvyn Tan was performing his new solo piano piece Catching Fire across London at Spitalfields Festival, but Andra East of the London Symphony Orchestra was at the ceremony to collect the award in Jonathan’s absence. The awards will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3’s ‘Hear and Now’ programme on Saturday 10 December at 10pm.