US orchestra picks half-Israeli music director
NewsThe Salina Symphony in Kansas has named Yaniv Segal as its next music director, only the third in 67 years.
He starts in October.
Yaniv grew up in New York 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. As a child, he sang at the Metropolitan Opera, then starred as Colin in the International Broadway Tour of The Secret Garden, and as Joe in Tom Stoppard’s Hapgood at Lincoln Center. He studied violin with Setsu Goto.
Chosen is chosen!
My father was from Los Angeles, my mother from Miami, and I was born in Boston. So I guess I’m half-Californian and half-Floridian?
Exactly. “Half-Israeli,” and the point is?
The point is: how to establish which half will be Israeli.
It’s not every day that the orchestra of an American town of 47,000 people rates a mention on Slippedisc. The only concert on its calendar at this point is a D-Day commemorative concert on June 4. It’ll be interesting to see what their next season will contain.
Why not half- polish?
Because we have fewer Polish readers.
“Half-Israeli” doesn’t sound right. How about American Israeli?
American and Israeli are nationalities. He is not a citizen of Israel. If he follows the religion, you could call him a Jewish-American or you could call him an American conductor of Polish and Israeli parents. Or you could just call him by his name and say he’s the new music director of the Salina, Kansas Symphony. His nationality and ethnic background is irrelevant.