Born in Bombay, India, Zubin Mehta grew up in a musical environment. His father, Mehli Mehta, founded the Bombay Symphony and was Music Director of the American Youth Symphony in Los Angeles. In 1954 he left for Vienna to study at the Academy of Music and seven years later, he conducted both the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonics. He rapidly became one of the world’s most sought after orchestral and operatic conductors, holding positions such as Music Director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic and the Bavarian State Opera. The Israel Philharmonic appointed him Music Advisor in 1969, Music Director in 1977, and Music Director for Life in 1981. In October 2019 he celebrated his farewell with the Israel Philharmonic and was named its Music Director Emeritus. He was also Chief Conductor of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Italy (1985-2017), becoming Honorary Conductor for Life in 2006. Zubin Mehta has won countless awards and distinctions. In Israel he has been awarded Honorary Doctorates by the Hebrew University, Tel Aviv University and the Weizmann Institute, and the Hebrew University has named a wing of the Musicology Department after him and his late father. In 1991 he was awarded a special prize at the ceremony of the Israel Prize presentation, he is the recipient of the 1995-6 Wolf Foundation Prize for Music and in 2012 he received the Presidential Medal of Distinction from President Shimon Peres. The Australian Government named him Honorary Companion of the Order of Australia in 2022. He is an honorary citizen of both Florence and Tel Aviv and was made an honorary member of the Vienna State Opera, the Bavarian State Opera and the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde Wien. The title of Honorary Conductor was bestowed upon him by the Vienna Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Bavarian State Orchestra. The Los Angeles Philharmonic has honored him with the title Conductor Emeritus and the Berlin Philharmonic made him an honorary member. In 2022, the new concert hall of the Teatro del Maggio Musicale in Florence was named after him. Other prizes include “Una vita nella musica – Artur Rubinstein”, the Kennedy Center Honors, the Dan David Prize, the Praemium Imperiale from the Japanese Imperial Family, a star on Hollywood Boulevard, an honorary doctorate from the Russian Academy of Art and the prestigious Tagore Award for Cultural Harmony. 2006 saw the publication of his autobiography, Die Partitur meines Leben: Erinnerungen (The Score of my Life: Memories). Zubin Mehta continues to support the discovery and furtherance of musical talents all over the world. Together with his brother Zarin he is a co-chairman of the Mehli Mehta Music Foundation in Bombay, where more than 200 children are educated in Western Classical Music.