The maestro returns

"I grew up in India and my home was full of Chinese elements, such as Chinese silk and antiques," the conductor says.

"One of my father's elder brothers worked in Shanghai during the 1930s. My grandmother once visited him in Shanghai and told us everything about the trip after she returned to India. Many years later, when my cousin (son of the uncle) visited us in Mumbai, he only spoke the Shanghai dialect," Mehta says.

Mehta was born into a musical family. His father was an accomplished violinist and founder of the Bombay Symphony Orchestra. He left India to study music in Vienna at the age of 18. Throughout the 1960s and '70s, he conducted the Montreal Symphony Orchestra and Los Angeles Philharmonic. In the 1980s, he served as music director for the New York Philharmonic and was named music director for life of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.

In 1990, set against the imposing backdrop of Rome's Baths of Caracalla in Italy, superstar tenors Jose Carreras, Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti were joined by more than 200 orchestra musicians. Under the baton of Mehta, they performed a spectacular event that made history and marked a permanent shift in the way classical music was consumed by the masses.

In 1990, 1995, 1998, 2007 and 2015, Mehta conducted the beloved annual concert featuring the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in the Golden Hall of the Musikverein.

When asked about what he loves besides music, the conductor says soccer, a sport that he has enjoyed since he was a child.

He mentions that the recent concerts in Beijing and Tianjin were arranged at the last minute and he is already planning to return to visit more Chinese cities in 2025 with the Orchestra of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.