As the founder-director of Sinfonye since 1986, Stevie Wishart has been pioneering a new approach to the medieval repertory, combining performance practices from certain traditional musics with historical research. Such explorations have also influenced her own compositions which reflect the sonorous overlaps between medieval and traditional musics, and contemporary and experimental idioms.
Recent performance projects have spanned both medieval and contemporary repertoires. These include reconstructing the recently discovered Cantigas de Amor by Dom Dinis of Portugal (1261-1325) for a world premiere at the 1992 Utrecht Festical. and devising a multi-media presentation of the Symphony of Celestial Revelations by Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) for the 1992 Adelaide, York and Exeter Festivals and BBC Radio. Sinfonye were also filmed for the documentary on improvisation presented by Derek Bailey.
With her own music, Wishart collaborated with four Sydney musicians to compose and perform in a dance-music piece, The Square of Infinity (directed by Tess de Quincey), which was initiated and premiered in the isolated dry bed of Lake Mungo, New South Wales and in Sydney, and collaboratively composed the soundtrack for a film version. She devised a new piece with the music-text group, the Machine for Making Sense. Recent performances have included those for the London Musicians' Collective (LMC) Festival, London and the Fabrik Jazz, Zurich. This was the culmination of a project to collaborate with an octet of women improvisers from various European countries.
