Trevor Wishart
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.
Trevor Wishart
- Born
- 1946 · Leeds.
- Nationality
- United Kingdom
- Occupation
- composer · musicologist
- Fields
- music theory · philosophy of music · music composing · composed musical work
- Education
- University of York
- Languages
- English
VALÉORINE Encyclopedia
VALÉORINE documentary reading
Documentary summary
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.
Admitted source layer · organised and presented by VALÉORINE
Reference Check
Propose documentary evidence for Trevor Wishart. A contribution is never written directly as fact: identity, source, rights and evidence gates still decide.
Sign in to contribute
World of VALÉORINE
Documentary connections
Only confirmed graph relationships appear here. Images are shown only when their identity and reuse rights both pass the documentary gate.
Documentary evidence
Documentary basis
Authority files
wikidata · Q3538614 · wikipedia · Trevor Wishart
In this article
Music
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.
Writings
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.
Discography
As Trevor Wishart: • Journey into Space (1973, 2xLP, not on label, mail order only) • Journey into Space (?, cassette, Integrated Circuit Records) • Red Bird: A Political Prisoner's Dream (1978, LP, York Electronic Studios) • Vox Cycle (1990, CD, Virgin Classics) • Red Bird / Anticredos (1992, CD, October Music) • Audible Design (1994, CD, Orpheus the Pantomime) • Tongues of Fire (1994, CD, Maxi-Single, Orpheus the Pantomime) • Journey into Space (2002, CD, Paradigm Discs) • Encounters in the Republic of Heaven (2011, CD, Orpheus the Pantomime) As Trevor Wishart & Friends: • Beach Singularity / Menagerie (1979, LP, York Electronic Studios) • Mouth Music (1982, LP, Hyperion) • Menagerie / Beach Singularity / Vocalise (1997, CD, Paradigm Discs) Appears on: • Electronic Music from York (1973, 3xLP, York Electronic Studio) • Miniatures (1980, LP, Pipe) • Integration (1983, cassette, ICR) • Computer Music Currents 4 (1989, CD, WERGO) • Electroacoustic Music and the Saxophones of Stephen Cottrell (1989, CD, Overhear Music) • Rē Records Quarterly Volume 3 Number 1 (1989, CD, Recommended Records) • Prix Ars Electronica 95 (1995, CD, Ars Electronica Center) • Inventionen '98 – 50 Jahre Musique Concrète (1999, CD, Edition RZ) • Or Some Computer Music (1999, CD, OR) • Fümms Bö Wö Tää Zää Uu: Stimmen Und Klänge Der Lautpoesie (2002, CD, Urs Engeler Editor) • Das Dreidimensionale Möbiusband (2003, 2XCD, Flying Swimming) • Festival Voor Nieuwe Muziek: Happy New Ears 2005 (2005, CD, Gonzo Circus)
Primary material
Documents and archives
reference work
- “Trevor Wishart”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
authority record
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q3538614: Trevor Wishart
General reference · Wikidata
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.MARTY, Nicolas, « Creavolution with Trevor Wishart », in Journal of Music and Meaning, vol. 10, 2011, http://jmm10.musicandmeaning.net/#post4
- 2.MILANI, Matteo et PLACIDI, Federico, « An interview with Trevor Wishart », USO, 2009 https://usoproject.blogspot.com/2009/01/interview-with-trevor-wishart-pt1.html, https://usoproject.blogspot.com/2008/12/interview-with-trevor-wishart-pt2.html, https://usoproject.blogspot.com/2009/01/interview-with-trevor-wishart-pt3.html (consultés le 6 décembre 2010)
- 3.VASSILANDONAKIS, Yiorgos, « An Interview with Trevor Wishart », in Computer Music Journal, Volume 33, n°2, 2009, p. 8-23
- 4.WISHART, Trevor, On Sonic Art, 1/ 1984 (York, publication autonome), 2/ 1996 (A New and Revised Edition by Simon Emmerson, New-York et Oxon, Routledge, collection « Contemporary Music Studies », Vol. 12), p. 4 – “One problem I have had in my own musical career is the rejection by some musicians and musicologists of my work on the grounds that ‘it is not music’. To avoid getting into semantic quibbles, I gave therefore entitled this book On Sonic Art and wish to answer the question what is, and what is not, ‘sonic art’. We can begin by saying that sonic art includes music and electro-acoustic music. At the same time, however, it will cross over into areas which have been categorised distinctly as text-sound and as sound-effects. Nevertheless, focus will be upon the structure and structuring of sounds themselves.”
- 5.Voir à ce sujet MARTY, Nicolas, « Presque Rien : de l’anecdote au surréalisme », à paraître.
- 6.Le parallèle s’arrête là où Ferrari, postérieurement à son œuvre, définit le « presque rien » comme un lieu rural non urbanisé, ce qui s’oppose radicalement à la présentation de Wishart – voir CAUX, Jacqueline, (Presque rien) avec Luc Ferrari, Barcelone, Main d’œuvre, 2002, p. 179
- 7.Wishart dans MARTY, Nicolas, « Creavolution with Trevor Wishart » – “A lot of the work I did with the electroacoustics – because there was hardly any equipment here, there were just tape recorders, essentially – was to find objects or to get people to blow down scaffolding tubes, or all kind of things. Recording improvisations, which I structured in some way. And then editing those to make a piece: I call that music-montage.”
- 8.Ibid. – “I think the pieces led up to Red Bird, where I crystallized the idea of using sounds in a mythological way. So instead of saying ‘this is the sound of something’, I thought ‘this is a sound of something which probably represents something else, and I can work with it in a mythical world of sound transformation’. Red Bird distils that idea and develops it as far as it would go, from my point of view. The change really came after that, when I became more interested in sound transformation as a musical formal idea.”
- 9.Voir WITTS, Dick, « Trevor Wishart and Vox », in The Musical Times, vol. 129, n°1747, 1988, p. 452-454
- 10.WISHART, Trevor, On Sonic Art
- 11.WISHART, Trevor, Audible Design - a plain and easy introduction to sound composition, p. 19 – “As Pierre Schaeffer was at pains to stress, once we begin working with sounds as our medium the actual origin of those sounds is no longer of any concern. This is particularly true in the era of computer sound transformation. However, the apparent origin (or physicality) of the sound remains an important factor in our perception of the sound in whatever way it is derived.”
- 12.WISHART, Trevor, On Sonic Art, p. 136 – “[...] landscape is the source from which we imagine the sounds to come. / Thus when we are sitting in the concert hall listening to the Beethoven symphony the landscape of the sound is the orchestra. When we are in our living room listening to a recording of the Beethoven symphony the landscape of the sounds remain the orchestra.” - [la compréhension du terme de landscape pouvant porter à confusion s’il était traduit, nous préférons conserver la version originale]
- 13.Ibid., p. 131 – “Landscape, at least at this level, is then a reasonably objective criterion, related to our recognition of the source of the sounds.”
- 14.WISHART, Trevor, On Sonic Art, p. 146-147
- 15.Ibid., p. 148
- 16.WITTS, Dick, « Trevor Wishart and Vox », in The Musical Times, vol. 129, n°1747, 1988, p. 454 – “[...] there’s utterance, in the sense of when I laugh or scream, or something which tells you about my age or health or attitudes.” - [la traduction littérale d’utterance serait « profération », mais nous considérons que ce terme est trop restrictif pour la signification donnée par Wishart. Nous conserverons donc la version originale une fois de plus.]
- 17.SCHAFER, R. Muray, The Soundscape - The Tuning of the world, p. 40 – “Many of the signals communicated among animals–those of hunting, warning, fright, anger or mating–often correspond very closely in duration, intensity and inflection to many human expletives. Man also may growl, howl, whimper, grunt, roar and scream.”
- 18.WISHART, Trevor, On Sonic Art, 1/ 1984 (York, publication autonome), 2/ 1996 (A New and Revised Edition by Simon Emmerson, New-York et Oxon, Routledge, collection « Contemporary Music Studies », Vol. 12)
- 19.WISHART, Trevor, Audible Design - a plain and easy introduction to sound composition, York, Orpheus the Pantomime, 1994
- 20.WISHART, Trevor, Journey into space Travelogue: An antiscore, York, publication autonome, 1975
- 21.WISHART, Trevor, Red Bird: a document, York, publication autonome, 1978
- 22.Ces livrets ne sont plus publiés mais peuvent être obtenus sur le site de Trevor Wishart, https://www.trevorwishart.co.uk/publ_bks.html
Bibliography printed in the source article · 2
- Trevor Wishart, On Sonic Art, York, Imagineering Press, 1985.
- Nicolas Marty, « Identification sonore, stratégies d'écoute et narrativités - L'exemple de Journey into Space de Trevor Wishart », mémoire de recherche en musique et musicologie (dir. François Madurell, Université Paris-Sorbonne), 2013, 356 p.
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
reference work
Secondary witnessauthority record
General reference
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 19 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Music memorabilia
42,307 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
- Trevor MorrisPerson
- Trevor NunnPerson
- Trevor RabinPerson
- Trevor WattsPerson
- Trey AnastasioPerson
- Trey AzagthothPerson
- Trey GunnPerson
- Trey LorenzPerson
Best supported in this field
For owners
Own a work by Trevor Wishart?
A specialist will read what you send and tell you what the house can establish, what it cannot, and whether the object is suited to sale. There is no charge and no obligation. The object stays with you throughout; nothing is shipped to us unless it is arranged in writing beforehand.