Expanding the Clarinet Literature: Featuring Five New Compositions by Caribbean Composers

For this project, I commissioned five new works for the clarinet by Caribbean composers. My goals with this project are to expand the clarinet literature written by composers from the Caribbean and to bring awareness to a group of people who have traditionally been underrepresented in the classical music space, more specifically, the clarinet classical music space. Composers for this project were born in one of the 13 independent Caribbean countries. I excluded Cuban composers since most of the existing works are currently from that country and I wanted to increase Caribbean representation from the traditionally underrepresented countries. While my composer parameters were general, they required composers to write a piece that incorporated a traditional element from their country. This could have included a genre, a rhythm, instrumentation, or folklore/storytelling. In this document, I provide composer biographies, program notes, and a performance guide for each piece. It is my hope that these works inspire clarinetists to consider performing and programing repertoire by Caribbean composers, while also inspiring other Caribbean composers to create new works for the clarinet.