Gabriel Prokofiev, BBC National Orchestra of Wales & Yaniv Segal
Biographie Gabriel Prokofiev, BBC National Orchestra of Wales & Yaniv Segal
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
For 90 years, BBC National Orchestra of Wales (BBC NOW) has played an integral part in the cultural landscape of Wales, occupying a distinctive role as both a broadcast and national symphony orchestra. Part of BBC Wales and supported by the Arts Council of Wales, it performs a busy schedule of live concerts throughout Wales and the rest of the UK. The orchestra is an ambassador of Welsh music, championing contemporary composers and musicians, and works closely with Welsh composer-in-association Huw Watkins. The orchestra performs annually at the BBC Proms and biennially at the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition, and its concerts can be heard regularly across the BBC: on Radio 3, Radio Wales and Radio Cymru. Building on its extensive work with special educational needs schools, BBC NOW performed the first ever Relaxed Prom in 2017, which won Best Family Event at the 2018 Fantastic for Families Awards. In December 2018 the Orchestra toured to China with Xian Zhang working with the British Council in China as part of their Inspiring Women in the Arts campaign. In 2015, as part of an extensive South America tour, the orchestra visited the Welsh colony in Patagonia. BBC NOW is based at BBC Hoddinott Hall in Cardiff Bay, where it continues its work as one of the UK’s foremost soundtrack orchestras.
Yaniv Segal
A compelling and versatile musician spotlighted in Esquire Magazine as a rising star that is “redefining classical music,” Yaniv Segal has appeared on stages around the world as an actor, singer, violinist, violist, and conductor. As an assistant conductor of the Detroit Symphony, he leads the orchestra in several community, education and family concerts annually. Between 2014-17, Yaniv was Assistant Conductor of the Naples Philharmonic and directed the Naples Philharmonic Youth Orchestra. He led the Naples Philharmonic in nearly twenty different programs per year including a concert with legendary violinist Itzhak Perlman that the Naples Daily News called “off the charts,” and that the performance of The Pines of Rome was “one of the most exciting ever heard.”
In the spring of 2018, Yaniv recorded Beethoven Reimagined with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales for Naxos Records. The album features new arrangements of Beethoven’s music by Yaniv Segal, Garrett Schumann, and Gabriel Prokofiev. In 2016, Yaniv recorded Joy and Sorrow with the Chelsea Symphony, an album of orchestral Klezmer music by New York composer David Chesky produced using the latest binaural technology. Yaniv also recorded Chesky's score to the 2017 feature animation The Mice War, a children’s opera about the folly of war. He was the assistant conductor on Blazing Mirage, a Hong Kong Philharmonic recording of music by Bright Sheng, and can be heard singing as a boy soprano on albums ranging from classical opera to rock and folk music.
In 2005, Yaniv co-created the Chelsea Symphony to provide performance and professional development opportunities for young instrumentalists, composers, and conductors. The Chelsea Symphony has performed dozens of world premieres alongside standard repertoire in the Metropolitan New York area, and can be frequently seen on the Amazon Prime series Mozart in the Jungle.
As a composer, Yaniv enjoys writing original works as well as reworking past masterpieces. The Chelsea Symphony premiered his modernized and reduced version of the Rite of Spring (Redux), and the Naples Philharmonic has performed several of Yaniv’s works including Beethoven’s Sonata for Orchestra in C Minor Op.30 No.2b, songs by Alma Mahler arranged for orchestra, and a celebratory fanfare. Yaniv’s new concert-length educational work for orchestra and narrator, The Harmony Games, will be performed nearly thirty times in the 2018-19 season.
Already fully at ease on stage from a young age, Yaniv sang as a boy soprano at the Metropolitan Opera, both as soloist and in the children’s choir, under conductors such as James Levine, Valery Gergiev, and Georg Solti. Yaniv later spent a year on the First National Tour of The Secret Garden as “Colin,” alongside multiple award-winner Audra McDonald, and then played Stockard Channing’s son “Joe” in Tom Stoppard's Hapgood at Lincoln Center’s Mitzi Newhouse Theater. While still in high school, Yaniv was twice a violin soloist with the Yonkers Philharmonic and regularly performed chamber music with members of the New York Philharmonic. As a collaborator, he has accompanied artists such as Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Mark Peskanov, and Francesco Libetti in venues from Avery Fisher Hall to Brooklyn's intimate Bargemusic.
Invited by Lorin Maazel to the inaugural Castleton Festival, Yaniv has also studied with Kurt Masur, and participated in masterclasses with Michael Tilson Thomas and Gustav Meier. He was selected as one of 18 participants (out of over 350 applicants) in the 2018 Evgeny Svetlanov Competition in Paris. In 2013, Yaniv completed graduate studies at the University of Michigan with renowned conducting pedagogue Kenneth Kiesler and MacArthur Award winning composer Bright Sheng. The son of a Polish violinist and an Israeli violin-maker, Yaniv grew up in New York speaking three languages in a multi-cultural household. In support of his education, achievements, and contributions to American Society he was a recipient of the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans in 2009.
