Bruno Walter Assistant Conductor Chair
Yaniv Attar
A native of Israel, Yaniv Attar was named Assistant Conductor of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra in 2008 and holds the Bruno Walter Assistant Conductor Chair. He leads the orchestra in a wide variety of educational and community outreach performances.
Drawn to orchestral conducting from early age, Attar has studied with Israel Edelson in Jerusalem, Virginia Allen at the Juilliard School in New York and Neil Thomson at the Royal College of Music in London, where he was also the associate conductor of the Tempus Chamber Orchestra. In 2008, Attar earned his Doctor of Music degree from McGill University where he studied under the tutelage of Alexis Hauser. A frequent guest conductor of all performing ensembles at McGill, Attar conducted the McGill Symphony Orchestra, The Contemporary Music Ensemble, University Choir and Opera McGill, with whom he conducted fully staged performances of Puccini's Gianni Schicchi and Ravel's L'enfant et les sortileges. Attar has also worked with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Virginia Symphony Orchestra, London Soloist Chamber Orchestra, Deutsche Kammeracademie Neuss am Rhein, Bakersfield Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Orchestra I Pomeriggi Musicali Milan, Mihail Jora Philharmonic Romania and Manhattan School of Music Orchestra. An active participant of many conducting workshops, Attar's teachers have included Kurt Masur, Janos Fürst, Jorma Panula, Leonard Slatkin, Peter Gülke, Donald Thulean, Daniel Lewis, John Farrer, Gerhard Markson, Liutauras Balciunas, Ovidiu Balan and Kirk Trevor. In 2009, Attar was awarded the Bruno Walter Memorial Foundation Award and is the recipient of the 2010 Career Development Grant from the Solti Foundation US.
Attar is also an accomplished classical guitarist. He has studied under Irit Even-Tov, Charles Ramirez and Sharon Isbin, for whom he served as teaching assistant at the Aspen Music Festival from 2003 to 2005. Attar was the first guitarist to win the Aviv Competition Prize in Israel and the Concerto Competition at the Juilliard School in 2001. Attar plays a guitar made by Christopher Dean from 2006. His studies have been generously supported by the American Israel Cultural Foundation, the AVI Fellowships of Switzerland and the ISEF Foundation.