Uri Segal was born in Jerusalem in 1944, currently in his 5th year serving as Principal Guest Conductor at the Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. Summer of 2007 marked his eighteenth and final season as Music Director of the renowned Chautauqua Festival SO in New York State. Segal is Laureate Conductor of Century Orchestra in Osaka, Japan, an orchestra he founded and led for 8 years. He served as Music Director of the Louisville Orchestra (Kentucky, USA), Principal Conductor of the Philharmonia Hungarica and the Bournemouth Symphony, Music Director of the Israel Chamber Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony. His winning of the First Prize at the International Mitropoulos Conducting Competition in New York in 1969 was followed by invitations for guest appearances with major European and American orchestras. He conducts regularly in Europe, Japan, the USA, Canada and Brazil. In Europe Segal led among others the Berlin Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw, London Symphony, London Philharmonic, The Philharmonia, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Warsaw Philharmonic, Stockholm Philharmonic and Spanish National. In the USA and Canada he conducted the Symphony orchestras of Chicago, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Dallas, Houston, Montreal, Rochester. In Israel he frequently conducts the Israel Philharmonic and the Jerusalem Symphony. In 1973 Segal made his operatic debut conducting 'The Flying Dutchman' at Santa Fe and has since conducted opera in Italy, France, Germany, Japan, Israel and the USA. (see “Repertoire List”). In February of 2009 Segal conducted the Japanese premiere of Ligeti's opera Le Grand Macabre in Tokyo with the Tokyo Chamber Opera Theater, and made his debut appearance in the Republic of Korea with the Bussan Philharmonic  . Other recent guest appearances include the Hamburg Symphony, Warsaw Philharmonic, Jerusalem Symphony, Orchestra della Svizera Italiana, Rochester Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony, Philharmonia of London, the Paris Conservatoire Laureates Orchestra, The Seville Orchestra and the Brussels Philharmonic. Segal has recorded for London-Decca and for EMI with the English Chamber Orchestra, London Philharmonic, Philharmonia, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Bournemouth Symphony, New Zealand Symphony and Century Orchestra Osaka, and with soloists Vladimir Ashkenazi, Radu Lupu Alicia de Larocha and Rudolf Firkusny. This biography was last updated on 12 - 2011