Yaniv Segal
Music Director Candidate
Creative polymath Yaniv Segal is a rising star who is “redefining classical music” (Esquire Magazine), and who has achieved success since childhood as a versatile performer and artist. In 2025, Segal began his tenure as Artistic Director of Orchestra Indiana and Principal Conductor of the Muncie and Marion Symphonies. Currently in his fifth season as Music Director of the Salina Symphony in Kansas, Segal is also on faculty at the Robert McDuffie Center for Strings where he is the Director of Orchestral Training. He is a former Assistant Conductor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin and the Naples Philharmonic, and Conductor Laureate and Artistic Advisor of the Chelsea Symphony. Segal has assisted at the New York Philharmonic and collaborated with performers ranging from Yitzhak Perlman to the Beach Boys. Guest appearances include with the Minnesota Orchestra, Kansai Philharmonic, Sinfonietta Cracovia, and Beethoven Academy Orchestra, among others. Since 2023, Segal has also been Musical Artistic Director and co-creator of American Patriots, a new theatrical song cycle examining patriotism and the current lived American experience from Indigenous, Black, white working class, and New American perspectives.
Commercial recordings include Patrick Harlin’s Earthrise, recorded in 2024 at the Krzysztof Penderecki European Center for Music, which is currently being used as part of contemporary artist Anne Patterson’s touring museum installation *The Truth of the Night Sky.* In 2020, NAXOS released Beethoven Reimagined, recorded with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, that was called “exciting [and] outrageous” by the Times of London, and features Beethoven’s music arranged by Segal as well as by composer/DJ Gabriel Prokofiev. Previous commercial releases include Klezmer influenced works of David Chesky on Joy and Sorrow and The Mice War, an opera that teaches the children about the folly of war.
As a composer, Segal’s orchestral music has recently been performed at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Corcoran Institute, and by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Naples Philharmonic, Reno Philharmonic, Sarasota Chamber Orchestra, Ashland Symphony Orchestra, Salina Symphony, Grand Rapids Classical Orchestra, and Norwalk Symphony. He wrote The Harmony Games (2018) to introduce school-age children to the orchestra and connect music and math; it has already been performed over fifty times. Other major works include …the light that breathes… (2024), New American Songs (2023), Symphony in Scenes: Skychange (2022), a new orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition (2021), Cello Concerto (2015), and Rite of Spring (Redux) (2013) – a reworking and update of Stravinsky’s Rite that includes electric guitar, bass guitar, and saxophone.
As a child, Segal sang at the Metropolitan Opera, toured the United States and Japan with the First National Tour of The Secret Garden, acted in Tom Stoppard’s Hapgood at Lincoln Center (where he “convinces as Hapgood’s adolescent son”- NY Times), and was a violin soloist twice with his hometown Yonkers Philharmonic. In the nineties he could be widely heard singing on TV commercials for Pepsi, as well as on CDs ranging from classical opera to rock and folk music.
Segal was invited to the inaugural Castleton Festival by Lorin Maazel and has studied with Kurt Masur at seminars in the USA and Europe. He was selected as one of 18 participants (out of over 350 applicants) in the 2018 Evgeny Svetlanov Competition in Paris. In 2013, Segal completed graduate degrees in conducting and composition at the University of Michigan with renowned conducting pedagogue Kenneth Kiesler and MacArthur Award winning composer Bright Sheng and with support from the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans.
Segal is a first-generation American who grew up in New York City with a Polish mother – a violinist who was one of the first women in the New York Philharmonic– and an Israeli father –a luthier who made the instruments his family plays on.
What’s your proudest accomplishment?
Writing The Harmony Games and watching thousands of kids discover the orchestra through music and storytelling.
What makes you laugh the most?
When my boys are being silly.
What would you sing at karaoke night?
“Bohemian Rhapsody.”
What’s your favorite movie?
Tough one! Here are three of my favorites: Amélie, Shawshank Redemption, Princess Bride.
If you could spend a day anywhere in the world, where would it be?
Machu Picchu is at the top of my bucket list.
What’s your favorite childhood memory?
Family birthday parties in my parents’ yard.
What’s one thing people are surprised to learn about you?
People are often surprised to learn that English isn’t my first language even though I was born in New York City. They also don’t usually expect that I can juggle or that I played on my college tennis team.
What’s your go-to comfort food?
A simple roasted chicken is always good.
If you weren’t a conductor, what career would you have pursued?
I was always interested in computer science and anthro-linguistics, so probably something combining the two.
What book are you currently reading (or have read recently that you loved)?
Recent favorite: Daniel Mason’s North Woods (it even inspired a recent composition of mine).
Currently reading: Michaeleen Doucleff’s Hunt, Gather, Parent.
What piece of music never fails to move you?
The finale, especially when the chorus sings Aufersteh’n, of Mahler’s Second Symphony is the perfect combination of power and hope.
If it was your final moment on Earth and you had to pick one song to listen to, what would it be?
“Everything in Its Right Place” by Radiohead.
Coffee or tea?
Coffee. Smooth black double espresso or aeropress.
Morning person or night owl?
Definite night owl.
Beach or mountains?
Mountains!
Dogs or cats?
Cats.
Sweet or savory?
Savory.
Favorite season?
Fall. I love the sound of wind through the leaves and the crisp air.
Window or aisle seat?
Depends. Window for overnight and aisle for day flights.
Sunrise or sunset?
I’m not usually up for the sunrise, but when I see it, I love it. I’ll never forget the first sunrise from the east-facing hospital window after my first son was born. It felt like the beginning of a new world.
Favorite holiday?
New Year’s Day. My parents used to host an all-day, open-house chamber music party where friends and colleagues would drop in throughout the day to read chamber music together. There was always great food, wonderful company, and music filling the house. It was the perfect way to welcome a new year.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
Every day, try to be better at something than the day before.