Program notes
Wuaraira Repano is a clarinet concerto in one movement, commissioned by the Contemporary Ensemble of Duquesne University and premiered in 2006 by clarinetist José Fernando Gómez under the direction of David Stock.
I grew up in Caracas, Venezuela, a city in a valley with paradise-like weather. Wuaraira Repano was the aboriginal name for the mountain to the north of the city, and literally means “Big Sierra.” Anyone who has lived in Caracas knows how important this cordillera is. From an early age, people visit the mountain to admire both the city and the ocean beyond it. During my high school years, I camped there with friends and have very fond memories of that time. It is also where I lost two dear friends in hang-gliding accidents in the late 1970s: Andrés Beltrán, my closest friend through high school, and Paul Carranza, the pianist of the band Mandala Indigo, who provided incidental music for the theater company where I trained as an actor. Paul, who was older, became an important musical mentor; he was the one who taught me my first piano chords.
I wanted to honor the members of that band in this piece. I decided to incorporate a theme from one of their songs, mainly using an arpeggiated chord progression that appears briefly in the clarinet cadenza (C♯3 – G♯3 – C♯4 – B3 – D♯4 – F♯4, etc.). While working on the concerto and recalling those happy teenage years, I realized that the other period of my life when I felt a similar joy was watching my son grow up. As he approached adolescence, I could not help but weave him into the fabric of the piece as well. The opening clarinet theme arose from the way my wife calls our son Amadís for dinner: she unconsciously sings a small motive (D♯ – E – A). I noticed that when I call him, I use a similar melody (D♯ – E – B), which became the concerto’s opening phrase.
The work is a quasi-sonata form with an extra section before what might be called the development, leading to a recapitulation, short cadenza, and codetta. It lasts about thirteen and a half minutes and is scored for solo clarinet, flute, English horn, bass clarinet, bassoon, French horn, trumpet, trombone, two percussionists, piano, and strings.
— Efraín Amaya (2013)
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Instrumentation & duration
Orchestral instrumentation:
flute, English horn, bass clarinet, bassoon · horn, trumpet, trombone ·
2 percussion · piano · solo clarinet in A · strings.
Duration: ca. 13:30 (one movement).
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Purchase options — orchestral version
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