Zubin Mehta
An American orchestra doesn't want to play more than it has to. I respectfully disagree with that attitude.Collection: Attitude
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.Collection: Teacher
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.Collection: Medical
As soon as, say, Saddam Hussein started bombing Israel with Scuds, everyone was like, 'Poor Israel.' But when Israel retaliates - and most of the time they then win - people turn against them.
I am always hearing from Israelis, 'Oh, CNN is anti-Israel,' or 'BBC is against us.' But no, they are reporting facts.
In truth, I became a conductor because deep down I wanted to conduct Brahms's four symphonies and Richard Strauss's tone poems.
If you can sing together, you can live together.
I endeavor that all orchestras I conduct sound Central European.
One learns how to change gears within a concert repertoire.
My temples are only in India. When I am in India, I go to the religious ceremonies.
I love to conduct opera.
My family and relatives alone could fill Shanmukhananda Hall in Bombay.
All these people who scream about Kashmir being an armed camp are in fact responsible for keeping it that way.
I knew at university that medicine was just not for me. I saved many lives by not being a doctor!
Though there is such a rich tradition of culture and arts, I have never been invited to perform at a concert in South India.
Indian hotels are doing well globally because they understand hospitality.
I have been to Kashmir many times, especially with my family, in the '70s.
There are certainly talented instrumentalists coming from India. I see them performing all over the world.
The private sector is growing so incredibly in India, in every city you have industries for whom building a concert hall would be nothing financially. But they just don't do it.
American musicians are very giving - they have the highest standard in the world - but they are also very demanding in their conditions.
I love the creativity of New York, but I don't enjoy the city - I don't like living here.
Critics do their job, and I take their criticism seriously.
The 'New York Times' reviews of my work have been evenly divided - favourable and unfavourable.
Even in music concerts in Mumbai and different parts of the world, seats are reserved for sponsors.
There is a school in Israel called Hand in Hand which I support. There Arab and Jewish students study together on a daily basis.
Most Arab Israelis speak Hebrew, but not the other way around. It's about time that changed.
Music is the message of peace, and music only brings peace.
I respect the Indian government for the fact that there are no settlements in Kashmir.
I've known Pinchas Zukerman since he was a teenager.
As long as they keep building settlements, the world will be anti-Israeli.
In Bombay, we have a fine concert hall. I think it is high time we built venues in Delhi and Calcutta, not only for western music, but also Indian music. It doesn't matter which party is in power; don't you think the capital of India should have a concert hall?
I sometimes feel it is to my disadvantage that I have not conducted the Cleveland Orchestra or the Boston or Chicago symphonies, but then I have had to sacrifice something in order to have enough time with my orchestras.
Citizens of India, Pakistan, and Kashmir need to come together and make music.
There are three orchestras in Munich, all world-quality, in a city of one million. Yet every hall is full.
My life is so full of sacrifices.
Just imagine, the thousands and thousands of concerts that take place every single day, all over the world. And the positive effect that they would have on the people listening. Now imagine a world without this. This void... it is unthinkable.
I would convert to Judaism if the operation didn't hurt so much.
I'm a Persian Jew, and we don't speak Hebrew.
Rock music is predictable, unless there's great talent involved.
I'm very much tied to the state of Israel, but I am against their policy of settlements in Palestine.
We are so indebted to our ancestors, musically speaking, that they have left us 400 years of music.
I am an Indian, so I do yoga.
You might say that Richard Wagner was the Queen Victoria of Europe. He had musical children everywhere!
I love rap because it talks about pain that comes authentically from the ghetto. It moves me.
I'm hopeful that Israelis can go to Ramallah whenever they want and see how the people are living.
It's hard to find an emblem of cultural, national pride that burns as bright as Israel's success in classical music.
The amount of culture going on in a small country like Israel is amazing.
I miss the standard of the New York Philharmonic's playing very much. It has certainly been a high point in my life.
In Chicago, they die for their teams.
New York for a long time was a kind of conductor's graveyard.