Zubin Mehta was born in 1936 in Bombay. He received his first musical training from his father, Mehli Mehta, founder of the Bombay Symphony Orchestra. After a short period of studying medicine in Bombay, in 1954 he moved to Vienna, where he joined the conducting program at the Akademie für Musik, studying under Hans Swarowsky.

In 1958, he won the Liverpool International Conducting Competition, as well as a prize at the Tanglewood Summer Academy. By 1961, he had already conducted the Vienna, Berlin, and Israel Philharmonic Orchestras, all of which he continues to work with closely to this day.

He served as Music Director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra from 1961 to 1967, and in 1962, he became Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, a position he held until 1978. In 1969, he also accepted the role of Music Advisor to the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, and in 1977, he became its Music Director. In 1981, he was named Music Director for life of the same orchestra.

He has conducted more than two thousand concerts with this extraordinary ensemble, leading tours on all five continents. In 1978, he was appointed Music Director of the New York Philharmonic, a role he held for 13 years, the longest tenure in the orchestra’s history. Since 1985, he has also served as Principal Conductor of the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence.

In 1963, he made his operatic debut with Tosca in Montreal. Since then, he has conducted at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Vienna State Opera, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, La Scala in Milan, and the opera houses of Chicago and Florence, as well as at the Salzburg Festival.

Between 1998 and 2006, he was Music Director of the Bavarian State Opera, where he conducted over 400 performances. Zubin Mehta has received a long list of awards and honors, including the Nikisch Ring, bestowed upon him by Karl Böhm. He is an honorary citizen of Florence and Tel Aviv, and became an honorary member of the Vienna State Opera in 1997. In 1999, he was awarded the United Nations Lifetime Achievement Peace and Tolerance Award.

In 2001, he was named Honorary Conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. The Munich Philharmonic bestowed the same honor on him in 2004, as did the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in 2006.

At the conclusion of his tenure at the Bavarian State Opera, he was named Honorary Conductor of the Bavarian State Orchestra and Honorary Member of the Bavarian State Opera. In December 2006, he received the Kennedy Center Honor, and in November 2007, he was named an honorary member of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde Wien.

In October 2006, he inaugurated the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía in Valencia, after which he launched a three-year project of Richard Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung cycle, produced by La Fura dels Baus in Valencia and Florence.