Inbal Segev serves as artist-in-residence at Chicago’s Grant Park Music Festival this summer, performing her own compositions, Mark Adamo’s Last Year, and Anna Clyne’s DANCE
(June 2025) — Cellist Inbal Segev, long known as a driving force in the creation of new cello repertoire for the 21st century and in recent years also making a name for herself as a composer, serves as artist-in-residence this summer at Chicago’s Grant Park Music Festival. Joined by the Grant Park Orchestra, she opens her week-long residency with a performance of Mark Adamo’s Last Year under the baton of Nicole Paiement (July 9) and closes it with Anna Clyne’s DANCE – written for her – led by conductor Courtney Lewis (July 16). In between, she gives two recitals, which include two of her own compositions, with members of the Grant Park Orchestra (July 13 & 14); and leads a masterclass (July 15). Later that month she joins the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, with which she is a frequent collaborator, for chamber music by Beethoven, Schubert, Glière, and Arensky (July 22); performs Bach’s Cello Suites Nos. 2, 4, and 6 at the Sevenars Music Festival in Massachusetts, following her performance last summer of the other three suites (Aug 3); and joins an all-star lineup of chamber musicians at Cape Cod’s Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival to perform music of Beethoven and Dohnányi (Aug 15).
Mark Adamo’s Last Year was composed in 2021, when the devastating hurricane that inflicted severe damage on Houston that year coincided with a close listen by Adamo to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. The composer responded with a single concerto in four movements, asking himself how the innocence and optimism of Vivaldi’s work might have changed had Vivaldi lived through the current climate crisis. Leading up to her Grant Park Music Festival performance, Segev gave three performances of the concerto under the baton of six-time Grammy Award winner Leonard Slatkin this past season with the Nashville Symphony and Las Vegas Philharmonic, as the conductor celebrated his 80th birthday. Anna Clyne’s DANCE, Segev’s recording of which now boasts more than 12 million listens on Spotify, was commissioned by the cellist after being introduced to Clyne by MacArthur Award-winning conductor Marin Alsop. Segev has since performed the concerto with orchestras around the world, often under Alsop’s baton.
During the pandemic lockdowns of 2020, Segev – supported by composition mentors like Timo Andres and Anna Clyne – lent her own voice to the 20 for 2020 project, which saw her commission 20 new chamber works for a four-volume recording and video series from Avie Records. Her contribution was the cello quartet Behold (2021). Filmed and recorded for the project’s final installment, released in 2022, this had its live premiere at Mexico’s Guadalajara International Chamber Music Festival in March 2024, and will be performed again, with members of the Grant Park Orchestra, during Segev’s residency this summer at the Grant Park Music Festival. Her Trio for Cello, Clarinet, and Piano(2024) had its world premiere in Jerusalem, its U.S. premiere in New York by the counter)induction contemporary ensemble, and a third performance this past spring in Michigan. The work will be likewise be reprised, along with Behold, in two recitals during Segev’s upcoming residency at the Grant Park Music Festival.
About Inbal Segev
Inbal Segev is “a cellist with something to say” (Gramophone). Combining rich tone and technical mastery with rare dedication and intelligence, she has appeared with orchestras including the Baltimore Symphony, Bamberg Symphony, Berlin Philharmonic, Dallas Symphony, Dortmund Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Orchestre National de Lyon, Pittsburgh Symphony, Polish National Radio Symphony, and St. Louis Symphony, collaborating with such prominent conductors as Marin Alsop, Stéphane Denève, Edward Gardner, Kirill Karabits, Lorin Maazel, Cristian Măcelaru, and Zubin Mehta. Committed to reinvigorating the cello repertoire, she has commissioned and premiered new cello concertos from Timo Andres, Anna Clyne, Avner Dorman, Fernando Otero, Victoria Poleva, and Dan Visconti. Recorded with Alsop and the London Philharmonic for Avie Records, Segev’s premiere recording of Clyne’s cello concerto DANCE, was an instant success, topping the Amazon Classical Concertos chart. Its opening movement was chosen as one of NPR Music’s “Favorite Songs of 2020,” receiving more than twelve million listens on Spotify. To encourage creative recovery during the early pandemic lockdowns, Segev launched 20 for 2020, a commissioning, recording, and video project for 20 cutting-edge composers, including John Luther Adams, Viet Cuong, and Angélica Negrón, all of whom wrote new works in response to the worldwide crisis. Segev’s previous discography includes acclaimed recordings of the Elgar Cello Concerto, Romantic cello works, and Bach’s Cello Suites, while her popular YouTube masterclass series, Musings with Inbal Segev, has inspired a generation of cellists.
A native of Israel, at 16 Segev was invited by Isaac Stern to continue her cello studies in the U.S., where she earned degrees from Yale University and The Juilliard School, before co-founding the Amerigo Trio with former New York Philharmonic concertmaster Glenn Dicterow and violist Karen Dreyfus. Segev started composing during the pandemic: her cello quartet, Behold, can be heard on her album 20 for 2020; her cello octet, B Natural, premiered at Yale in 2023; and in 2024 her string trio premiered in Fort Worth and her clarinet trio in Israel. Segev’s cello was made by Francesco Ruggieri in 1673. A complete bio for Segev is available here.
Inbal Segev: summer 2025 engagements
July 9
Chicago, IL
Grant Park Music Festival Residency
Jay Pritzker Pavilion
Grant Park Orchestra
Nicole Paiement, conductor
Mark ADAMO: Last Year
July 13
Chicago, IL
Grant Park Music Festival Residency
Jay Pritzker Pavilion
Musicians of the Grant Park Orchestra
BEETHOVEN: Cello Sonata no. 5 in D, Op. 102
DEBUSSY: Cello Sonata in D minor
Inbal SEGEV: Trio for Cello, Clarinet, and Piano
Inbal SEGEV: Behold for Cello Quartet
TANSMAN: Deux Mouvement for Cello Quartet
July 14
Chicago, IL
Grant Park Music Festival Residency
Columbus Park Refectory
Musicians of the Grant Park Orchestra
BEETHOVEN: Cello Sonata no. 5 in D, Op. 102
DEBUSSY: Cello Sonata in D minor
Inbal SEGEV: Trio for Cello, Clarinet, and Piano
Inbal SEGEV: Behold for Cello Quartet
TANSMAN: Deux Mouvement for Cello Quartet
July 15
Chicago, IL
Grant Park Music Festival Residency
Choral Rehearsal Room
Masterclass
July 16
Chicago, IL
Grant Park Music Festival Residency
Jay Pritzker Pavilion
Grant Park Orchestra
Courtney Lewis, conductor
Anna CLYNE: DANCE
July 22
New York, NY
Alice Tully Hall
Chamber Society of Lincoln Center
Anna Geniushene, piano
Francisco Fullana, violin
Lawrence Dutton, viola
Sterling Elliott, cello
BEETHOVEN: Variations in G for Piano, Violin, and Cello, Op. 121a, “Kakadu”
SCHUBERT: Adagio and Rondo concertante in F for Piano, Violin, Viola and Cello, D. 487
GLIÈRE: Selections from Ten Duos for 2 Cellos, Op. 53
ARENSKY: Quartet No. 2 in A minor for Violin, Viola, and 2 Cellos, Op. 35
Aug 3
Worthington, MA
Sevenars Music Festival
BACH: Suites for Unaccompanied Cello Nos. 2,4 and 6
Aug 15
Wellfleet, MA
Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival
BEETHOVEN: Septet in E-flat for Clarinet, Horn, Bassoon, Violin, Viola, Cello and Bass, Op. 20
DOHNÁNYI: Sextet in C for Piano, Clarinet, Horn and String Trio, Op. 37