Trey Makler

Shaminsen, Harp, Percussion, Violin, Viola, Cello, and Double Bass

Composer's Note:

wrapped around your finger was written for shamisen player Hidejiro Honjoh and the Empyrean Ensemble. This piece explores desire, control, and authority through 
shifting power relationships that are felt across the ensemble. The primary "controller" is the harp, who I imagined as a puppeteer with marionette strings extending from the player's fingers to the other ensemble members. Gradually, the harpist gathers up the rest of the ensemble and holds them under her spell. Ultimately, this spell is broken as solos rage against control and seek to break free. wrapped around your finger further explores concepts of loosening/tightening through rhythmic sputtering, de/tuning, and gathering and fragmentation.

I chose to divide the ensemble into three groups and spread them throughout the performance space in order to devalue the stage and the visual. The audience is fully centered in this work, and has no way of seeing all of the performers, which allows for explosive gestures and subtle effects to take the listener by surprise without relying on visual cues from the performers' bodies. Furthermore, the pre-concert tableau, in tandem with the spatialization of the ensemble, creates a space that the audience enters into. It is intended to feel like a new world that has always already existed. As listeners, we are guests in a foreign place.