Trevor Wishart

English composer

Trevor Wishart (born 11 October 1946) is an English composer, based in York. Wishart has contributed to composing with digital audio media, both fixed and interactive. He has also written extensively on the topic of what he terms "sonic art", and contributed to the design and implementation of software tools used in the creation of digital music; notably, the Composers Desktop Project. Wishart was born in Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire. He was educated at the University of Oxford (BA 1968), the University of Nottingham (MA 1969), and the University of York (PhD 1973). Although mainly a freelance composer, he holds an honorary position at the University of York. He was appointed as composer in residence at the University of Durham in 2006, and then at the University of Oxford Faculty of Music in 2010–11, supported by the Leverhulme Trust.

Wishart's compositional interests deal mainly with the human voice, in particular with the transformation of it and the interpolation by technological means between human voice and natural sounds. This is most evident in his albums Red Bird/Anticredos (composition period: 1973–77, publishing date: 1992) and VOX Cycle (1980–1988, 1990), and also in the compositions Tongues of Fire (1993–94, 2000), Globalalia (2003–2004, 2010), Two Women (1998, 2000), and American Triptych (1999, 2000). He is also a solo voice performer and an improviser of extended vocal techniques, using the recordings of his own improvisations to compose his electroacoustic pieces as well, like he did for Red Bird and Vox 5.

Wishart has written two books, On Sonic Art and Audible Design. On Sonic Art puts forth his theoretical and philosophical ideas, while Audible Design deals mainly with the practice and technique of composing with digital audio.