Mehli Mehta concerts

To mark the birth centenary of Mehli Mehta, the violinist and conductor who founded the Bombay Symphony Orchestra, music lovers will be treated to an extraordinary suite of five concerts in the second week of October, coordinated by his son legendary conductor Zubin Mehta who will helm the series. The driving passion behind the event is to help the Bombay based Mehli Mehta Music Foundation to set up a school of music in the city where the senior Mehta cut his musical teeth and taught himself to play the violin.

World famous tenor Placido Domingo, pianist-conductor Daniel Barenboim, Israeli violinist Pinchas Zukerman, cellist Amanda Forsyth, Italian soprano Barbara Frittoli will perform, and of course the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra with which Mehta has had a lasting and productive association, reported The Times of India (TOI) on September 15, 2008. "These are all personal friends of mine and have been making music for years. We have been working on this for two years,” Mehta informed TOI when asked how difficult it had been for so many eminent musicians to arrange their schedules in order to be in Bombay for the centenary concerts. "Many of them were close to my father, so it is out of respect for him that they agreed to come,” he added.

Zubin Mehta: treat for music lovers

"All of them share our belief that there should be a school for western classical music in India because of the tremendous talent in Bombay. Mehroo Jeejee­bhoy (trustee of the Foundation) and her legion of volunteers have helped us greatly, and we hope to one day have a professional school of music,” Mehta acknowledged. The eminent conductor also spoke to TOI about being hopeful of collecting individual donations for the project, but felt that "a system should be introduced in India whereby you get a tax rebate if you donate to culture.” He elaborated that the American government does not support culture, universities or hospitals, which are all funded privately. But what the government does is to give tax concessions. Box office money normally amounts to less than 50 percent and the rest comes from donations.

"My father was a trained accountant, a BCom from Sydenham College and a self-taught violinist. In the 1920s when he was in his teens, he heard a great violinist, Jascha Heifetz, and he was so inspired listening to him that he bought himself a violin, and with a little help from an Italian teacher, he learned to play it. He was completely self-taught,” Mehta informed TOI. At the end of the Second World War the senior Mehta got a Tata scholarship and boarded a ship for New York where he studied violin from scratch for four years. He later moved to England in 1955 where he became the conductor of the Halle Orchestra in Manchester. He got a post with a string quartet in Philadelphia in 1960 and then went to Los Angeles where he lived for 35 years during which period he founded and conducted the American Youth Symphony. Barenboim and Zukerman played (fund raising) concerts with him in Los Angeles. Today, graduates of that symphony orchestra play in different orchestras all over America, the proud son related to TOI.