MEHTA (MAY-tuh)
Indian-born
conductor of classical music
Common
clue:
Bombay-born conductor; Israel Philharmonic director; Maestro
Zubin; Conductor
Zubin
Crossword
puzzle frequency:
once a year
Frequency
in English language:
46824 / 86800
Video: Zubin
Mehta does variations on “Happy Birthday”
Essentially, the [New York] Philharmonic is just like any other orchestra – they have the spirit of kids, and if you scratch away a little of the fatigue and cynicism, out comes a 17-year-old music student again, full of wonder, exuberance and a tremendous love of music. – Zubin Mehta
Zubin Mehta (born 29 April 1936) is an Indian conductor of Western classical music. He is the Music Director for Life of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and the Main Conductor for Valencia's opera house. Mehta is also the chief conductor of Maggio Musicale Fiorentino festival.
Zubin Mehta was born into an aristocratic Indian Parsi family in Bombay (now Mumbai), India. His father Mehli Mehta was a violinist and founding conductor of the Bombay Symphony Orchestra. Zubin initially intended to study medicine, but eventually became a music student in Vienna at the age of 18, under the eminent instructor Hans Swarowsky. (Also at the same academy along with Zubin were conductor Claudio Abbado and Daniel Barenboim.) In 1958, he made his conducting debut in Vienna. The same year he won the International Conducting Competition in Liverpool and was appointed assistant conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.
Mehta soon rose to the rank of chief conductor when he was made Music Director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra in 1960, a post he held until 1967. Other appointments followed: Musical Director the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra (1962–1978); the New York Philharmonic Orchestra (1978–1991), becoming the longest holder of the latter post. He has conducted the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra since 1970 and was made its Music Director for Life in 1981. Additionally since 1998, he has been Music Director of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich.
In 1990, he conducted the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and the Orchestra del Teatro dell'Opera di Roma in the first ever Three Tenors concert in Rome, joining the tenors again in 1994 at the Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles. In June 1994, Mehta performed the Mozart Requiem, along with the members of the Sarajevo Symphony Orchestra and Chorus at the ruins of Sarajevo's National Library, in a fund raising concert for the victims of armed conflict and remembrance of the thousands of people killed in the Yugoslav wars. On August 29, 1999, he conducted Mahler Symphony No. 2 (Resurrection), at the vicinity of Buchenwald concentration camp in the German city of Weimar, with both the Bavarian State Orchestra and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, sitting alongside each other.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Zubin Mehta".
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