Zubin Mehta

Zubin Mehta is an Indian conductor born in Bombay in 1936 and one of the best-known podium figures of the past half century. He led the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic and the Israel Philharmonic for long stretches, and he is especially at home in big Romantic symphonies and opera.

Mehta tends to favor full, warm orchestral sound and a clear, broad sweep over fussy detail. Expect long melodic lines in the Bruckner symphony, where the brass and strings build slowly toward large climaxes. In Mozart's piano concerto, listen for how the orchestra frames the soloist with a lighter touch. His Sibelius and Dvořák programs suit his taste for rich color, with the Dvořák Seventh offering dark, stormy drama before its stirring finish.

Mehta grew up in Bombay, where his father helped found the Bombay Symphony Orchestra, and he went to Vienna as a young man to study conducting. He won an international conducting competition in Liverpool in 1958. He became music director of the Montreal Symphony and then the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the early 1960s, and later led the New York Philharmonic from 1978 to 1991. He also had a long association with the Israel Philharmonic, and he conducted widely in opera and at the Vienna Philharmonic's concerts.