Word: mehtas
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Zubin's father, Mehli Mehta, was Bombay's leading musician, a violinist who played dinner music at the Taj Mahal Hotel, in his spare time served as conductor of the Bombay Symphony. Little wonder, then, that Zubin says he was "brainwashed with classical music from the cradle." He had his own record player when he was two years old, later crouched wide-eyed in the corner during his father's lessons and chamber-music rehearsals. With his retentive memory and faultless ear, he was soon whistling Paganini caprices in the original key while riding his bike...
...Cream & Orange Juice. Finally Mehli Mehta relented, began teaching him the rudiments of the baton. One day, when Zubin was 16, his father let him conduct a Bombay Symphony rehearsal. "The moment he got onto the podium," says Bombay Cellist George Lester, "he instantly took command, gave us our correct cues and put us under his spell...
...cream and orange juice in the cafes while other students had cigarettes and coffee or brandy. He tirelessly went to concerts, played bass in the academy orchestra ("I learned a lot about orchestra psychology"), and gravitated to the conducting classes of Hans Swarowsky. The revered teacher recognized in Mehta a "demoniac conductor" who "had it all." Nevertheless, he put Mehta through the usual drills: left hand in his pocket, right sleeve tied to a desk, conducting only with wrist movements of the right hand while Swarowsky sometimes paced behind him, muttering criticisms in three languages to test his concentration...
Shooting Star. "Go to the young conductors who are not making it," Mehta says, "and you will hear how we shouldn't push ourselves or sell ourselves, how they don't have the right connections and the right opportunities. Well, you can be sure they've had the opportunities. But to make your way in a conducting career, you not only have to have opportunities; you have to make them a success." Mehta began pushing and making successes-while still a student. After the Hungarian revolution in 1956, he organized a student orchestra in seven days...
...academy, and moved to Liverpool as assistant conductor (part of his prize). On the Liverpool podium, Mehta quickly discovered that "I was just unprepared to lead a professional orchestra. I learned at their expense but I learned." Two seasons of guest appearances and substituting for ailing elders gained him attention in America, and in 1961 he arrived in Montreal, says Concertmaster Calvin Sieb, "like a shooting star, burning all the time...