Conductor Zubin Mehta's profound artistry and devotion to music make him a world treasure,' Kennedy Center chairman Stephen A Schwarzman said.
Mehta, a Parsi, has asserted he makes music for everybody, and has often carried it to places where it is most needed, to the ruins of the Bosnian National Library in war-torn Sarajevo, to Tel Aviv during the Gulf War, to Moscow's Gorky Park during the twilight of the Soviet era and to his native India where his Israeli musicians broke the decades-long absence of cultural dialogue and diplomatic ties between India and Israel.
He has led the Los Angeles Philharmonic and New York Philharmonic. This year he completes his tenure as music director of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich.
Also read: Encore Zubin!
Mehta received his musical early education from his father Mehli Mehta, violinist and co-founder of the Bombay Symphony Orchestra and later music director of the American Youth Symphony in Los Angeles. Zarin Mehta, his younger brother, is today executive director of the New York Philharmonic.
In his autobiography published in Germany titled Die Partitur meines Leben: Erinnerungen (The Score of My Life: Memories), Mehta declares, 'It all comes from the music. I do whatever the music demands. What is conducting? Conducting is communication. And what I communicate at the moment is what I feel and what my musicians need.'
Image: Conductor Zubin Mehta and his wife Nancy at the 29th annual Kennedy Center Honors December 3, 2006.
Photograph: Nancy Ostertag/Getty Images
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