Mehli Mehta (25 September 1908 – 19 October 2002) was an Indian conductor and violinist.
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Early life
Mehta was born in Bombay, India to a Parsi family. His involvement in music stemmed from his birth. As a young violinist his main musical influence and inspiration was Jascha Heifetz. A pioneering figure in the Indian musical world, he founded the Bombay Symphony Orchestra in 1935, and was its Concertmaster (1935–1945) and conductor (1945–1955). He was married to Tehmina.
Performing career
In 1940 Mehta founded the Bombay String Quartet. He spent five years in New York City studying with eminent violin pedagogue Ivan Galamian, and earned degrees from the University of Bombay and Trinity College of Music in London.
He moved to the United States in 1945, where he studied violin in New York. In 1955 Mehli Mehta moved to England, where he served for five years as Assistant Concertmaster and Concertmaster of the Hallé Orchestra of Manchester under Sir John Barbirolli. Mehta came to regard Barbirolli as "one of the greatest influences of my conducting life."
In 1959 he joined the Curtis Quartet of Philadelphia and toured with them across the United States for the next five years. In later years he was to state, "the string quartet has been the prime, basic factor of my entire musical philosophy." He then moved to Los Angeles and was Director of the Orchestra Department at UCLA (1964 to 1976).