Yaniv Segal
Weeks 1 & 2: July 7 - 18
Creative polymath Yaniv Segal has earned critical acclaim as a conductor, composer, and violinist. Hailed by Esquire as a rising star “redefining classical music,” he serves as Music Director of the Salina Symphony, Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of Orchestra Indiana, and Director of Orchestral Training at the Robert McDuffie Center for Strings at Mercer University.
A former Assistant Conductor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and Naples Philharmonic, Segal has also assisted at the New York Philharmonic and has collaborated with artists ranging from Itzhak Perlman to the Beach Boys. Guest conducting engagements include the Minnesota Orchestra, Kansai Philharmonic, Sinfonietta Cracovia, and Beethoven Academy Orchestra. Since 2023, Segal has served as Musical Artistic Director of American Patriots, a theatrical song cycle exploring patriotism through Indigenous, Black, white working-class, and immigrant American perspectives.
Drawing on his experience as a music educator and father, Segal composed The Harmony Games in 2018. Commissioned by the Naples Philharmonic, the interactive work introduces school-age children to the orchestra while connecting music with mathematics, and has been performed more than 50 times. Since 2018, Segal has also served on the faculty of Greenwood Junior Music Camp in the Berkshires, where he leads the orchestra, coaches chamber music, and teaches violin.
Raised in New York City, Segal is the son of a Polish violinist who was among the first women in the New York Philharmonic and an Israeli luthier who built the instruments his family plays. He studied violin with Setsu Goto and twice appeared as a soloist with the Yonkers Philharmonic.
Segal earned his bachelor’s degree from Vassar College and graduate degrees in conducting and composition from the University of Michigan as a Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans recipient. He has also studied with Lorin Maazel and Kurt Masur, and continues to receive mentorship from international conductors Leonard Slatkin and Andrey Boreyko.
Segal lives in New York City with his wife, a physician-scientist, and their two young sons.