Boris Allakhverdyan

Boris Allakhverdyan is principal clarinet of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, a post he has held since 2016, after several seasons in the same chair at the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. He plays the standard clarinet repertoire alongside chamber music and jazz-inflected concert works, and he appears regularly as a soloist with his own orchestra. On October 1, 2026 he is the featured soloist on the LA Phil's gala program in Los Angeles.

Allakhverdyan's sound is warm and even from the low, woody bottom of the instrument up to the bright top, with a liquid legato that lets long lines unspool without an audible seam. The gala repertoire plays to that flexibility. Bernstein's Prelude, Fugue, and Riffs was written for Benny Goodman, and its solo part asks a classically trained player to swing, bending notes, snapping off syncopations, and riding over a jazz band of saxophones and brass. Tsfasman's Jazz Suite comes from the Soviet dance-band world of the 1940s, all tango sway and quick, glinting tunes. Expect crisp articulation in the fast riffs, a singing tone in the slow numbers, and a soloist willing to trade the polish of the concert hall for something looser when the music asks.

Allakhverdyan was born in Baku, Azerbaijan, and began clarinet study as a child. He continued his training in the United States, and in 2010 he became principal clarinet of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in New York. In 2016 he moved to Los Angeles as principal clarinet of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He has won prizes in international clarinet competitions, performs chamber music and solo recitals, and teaches younger players alongside his orchestral work.