Quotes from Zubin Mehta

An American orchestra doesn't want to play more than it has to. I respectfully disagree with that attitude.

I endeavor that all orchestras I conduct sound Central European.

In this art form, in any art form, generalities are useless.

Open rehearsals reach people who might not otherwise hear the Philharmonic - people on fixed incomes, people who can't move easily at night, students.

There is a school in Israel called Hand in Hand which I support. There Arab and Jewish students study together on a daily basis.

Although I am flexible and ready to take advice, I can't carry an umbrella of thoughts over my head that would distract me and affect my music making.

Bruckner's Eighth is a colossus.

My father was a trained accountant, a BCom from Sydenham College and a self-taught violinist. In the 1920s, when he was in his teens, he heard a great violinist, Jascha Heifetz, and he was so inspired listening to him that he bought himself a violin, and with a little help from an Italian teacher, he learned to play it.

My parents had chosen the medical profession for me. I even studied a few semesters at St Xavier's College, but at the back of my mind, I always wanted to be a musician like my father.