Boris Allakhaverdyan will be featured at St. Matthew’s Music Guild concert.
The world premiere of Grammy Award winner Richard Danielpour’s Four Angels for Clarinet and String Quartet will highlight St. Matthew’s Music Guild’s concert at 8 p.m. on Friday, November 11.
Boris Allakhaverdyan, Los Angeles Philharmonic principal clarinet, will be the soloist. He was appointed to that position in 2016, after having previously served at the principal clarinet of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and the associate principal clarinet of the Kansas City Symphony. Allakhverdyan is the Gold Medal winner of the prestigious 2007 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition.
Danielpour is considered one of the most gifted and sought-after composers today. He has been commissioned by some of the most celebrated artists of our day including Yo-Yo Ma, Jessye Norman, Dawn Upshaw, Susan Graham, Emanuel Ax, Gil Shaham and Frederica von Stade.
Commissioning institutions include the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Maryinsky Theatre and Vienna Chamber Orchestras. Richard Danielpour’s Four Angels for Clarinet and String Quartet was commissioned by New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and is a reflection on the Birmingham church bombing in 1963. Danielpour created a version of the work for solo clarinet and string orchestra on commission from St. Matthew’s Music Guild in 2021.
In addition to Four Angels, the concert will include Sinfonia No. 10 in B minor by Felix Mendelssohn, and Latin Grammy Award winner Yalil Guerra’s Clave para Cuerdas y Percusión, an effervescent work that evokes the rhythms and harmonies of his native Cuba.
The program closes with Karl Jenkins’ suite for strings, Palladio.
A pre-concert lecture, “Liner Notes with Tom Neenan,” begins at 7:10 p.m. and is free and open to the public. Neenan’s insights are always informative and include information that illuminates the music and selected pieces.
Concerts are held at St. Matthew’s Church, 1031 Bienveneda Ave. Tickets are $35, or Music Guild Season passes are available for as little as $200. For information, visit: or call (310) 573-7422.
Thank you for this engaging notice. Just a small correction: the Danielpour piece receiving its world premiere is “Four Angels” for Clarinet and String Orchestra. It is a reworking of the earlier “Four Angels” for Clarinet and String Quartet. Probably of no consequence to anyone with the possible exception of the composer. Many thanks.