British composer Jonathan Dove has been named senior artist-in-residence at The Banff Centre. During his five-week residency, Dove will mentor program participants, work on an operatic retelling of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park for performance in a stately home, and present his opera, Siren Song, at the 2009 Banff Summer Arts Festival.
Aside from working on his own material in the Leighton Artists’ Colony, Dove will interact with participants enrolled in the Centre’s Opera and Music programs. Participants will have the opportunity to explore the composer’s methods, practices, and tools during discussion groups, master classes, and other collaborative activities. The residency is supported by The Gail and Stephan A. Jarislowsky Master Artist Program Fund, the Maclab Enterprises Endowment Fund, and the Banff Community Foundation.
Best known as a composer of operas and choral music, Dove has built an international reputation breaking every convention in the opera rule book. He stages operas in shopping malls, tells stories drawn from news headlines, and attracts audiences who can’t tell Puccini from Wagner. His 2002 TV opera When she died… was broadcast to an audience of close to a million viewers in the United Kingdom. His best-known work, Flight, is set in an airport. His second TV opera, Man on the Moon, tells the story of astronaut Buzz Aldrin. He has staged his community operas everywhere from cathedrals to market squares. Dove has written operas about the refugee in Charles de Gaulle airport, Princess Diana’s funeral, and the Channel Tunnel. Recently, Dove has been writing pieces for a family audience. He wrote The Adventures of Pinocchio in the hope of introducing young people to the world of opera. He’s also written Tobias and the Angel, and a contemporary re-telling of the story of the Tower of Babel.
