Mehta, who was the conductor of the New York Philharmonic for 13 years and is now attached to Munich's Bavarian State Opera, as well as the opera house of Valencia, Spain, is in Mumbai this month to hold a series of concerts at Brabourne Stadium and the NCPA to raise funds for the Mehli Music Foundation to open a school. And to mark his father, musician Mehli Mehta's birth anniversary in a very special, sentimental way.
With him is the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, who have played in India twice before and pianist/conductor Daniel Barenboim, famous Spanish tenor Placido Domingo, soprano Barbara Frittoli and violinist Pinchas Zukerman (who have all waived their professional fees for these performances). It took Mehta two years of backbreaking work to arrange this unique concert festival that pays homage to his father and Mumbai has never before witnessed such wonderful music.
Mehli Mehta, Zubin's dad, was a teacher, violinist and conductor of the Bombay Symphony Orchestra and a man who lived for music and struggled fearlessly and tirelessly to achieve perfection in his field. More importantly he is credited with generating an immense amount of interest among Indians in western music in Mumbai in his day, when audiences were only white, and bringing music into the lives of many including his son Zubin.
"I wish my father was here personally today," Zubin Mehta said emotionally at a press conference Monday. "I cannot imagine how he would have felt. The programme we have chosen was completely his favourite music... It's music he himself performed." Later that evening at the launch of his autobiography -- The Score of My Life -- he said, "Conducting is a spiritual experience, it doesn't stop. It's like molten lava, it never stops."
Also read: Zubil Mehta, Israeli icon
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