biography
with Maestro Leonard Bernstein (ca 1988), Maestro Lorin Maazel (2009), and Maestro Pierre Boulez (2010)
Yaniv Segal, described in Esquire Magazine as a rising star who is "redefining classical music," has performed worldwide as a singer, violinist, actor and conductor. He is the music director of the Michigan Pops Orchestra in Ann Arbor, where he is studying for a master's degree in Orchestral Conducting at the University of Michigan with Kenneth Kiesler. Yaniv regularly conducts the Chelsea Symphony in New York - an orchestra which he cofounded in 2005 and is dedicated to teamwork and performance opportunities for upcoming musicians. In the summer of 2009, Yaniv was an apprentice conductor with Maestro Lorin Maazel at the inaugural Castleton Festival.
The son of a violinist and violin-maker, Yaniv began to play the violin at age four and began singing at age eight. As a boy, Yaniv sang at the Metropolitan Opera under conductors such as James Levine, Valery Gerghiev, and Georg Solti, and between 1992-1993 played the role of Colin in the first national tour of the Secret Garden. His acting career continued with a role in Tom Stoppard's "Hapgood" at Lincoln Center Theater, where he shared the stage with Stockhard Channing, David Strathairn, David Lansbury and others.
As an undergraduate at Vassar College, Yaniv co-founded and served as music director of the Mahagonny Ensemble - a student ensemble dedicated to music of the past 100 years - and as assistant conductor to the Vassar College Orchestra. He has since worked as an assistant with the New York Youth Symphony, Princeton Symphony and at the Manhattan School of Music. Yaniv has also conducted the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, Castleton Festival, University Symphony, Greenwich Village and New Symphony (Bulgaria) Orchestras, the Wroclaw (Poland) and Thuringen (Germany) Philharmonics, and the Ukrainian State and Stamford Young People's Symphonies.
Yaniv is a recipient of the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, and the Ada L. Hopkins Scholarship at the University of Michigan.