Winner of the 2008 Ivor Novello Award for classical music, Jonathan Dove has consistently explored what opera can be, and what audiences it can reach.   He has written twenty-five operas of different shapes and sizes, including the highly successful airport comedy Flight. He has written two operas for television, When She Died and Man on the Moon, a church opera, Tobias and the Angel, and several chamber operas. An unusual achievement has been a series of community operas in different parts of the UK, often involving hundreds of performers in a single event.

With Alasdair Middleton, he has written several operas for a family audience, including The Adventures of Pinocchio, Swanhunter and The Enchanted Pig, Recent collaborations with Alasdair  Middleton  include  Mansfield Park for Heritage Opera, and Life is a Dream for Birmingham Opera

In the summer of 2015, in Berlin, London and Aix, Sir Simon Rattle conducted the premiere productions of The Monster in the Maze, a community opera commissioned by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra and the Festival International d’Art Lyrique d’Aix-en-Provence.  Dove received a British Composer Award for the opera, which has since been performed in Lille, Montpellier and Taiwan; this year it will be presented in Lisbon.

Premieres last year included a solo piano piece, Catching Fire, for Melvyn Tan; A Brief History of Creation for the Hallé Orchestra and Children’s Choir; In Damascus for Mark Padmore and the Sacconi Quartet; a cantata, Arion and the Dolphin; and Seasons & Charms, children’s songs for Aldeburgh’s Friday Afternoons project. The Last Night of the Proms included Our Revels Now Are Ended.

Marx in London (a comedy) will open in Opera Bonn in 2018.