A respected name in western classical music completes 30 years in 2025!
To celebrate this milestone, a book titled ‘Encore’ has been painstakingly researched and was released on September 27. It is packed with anecdotes, stories and photographs and is a vivid document of the Foundation’s journey, brimming with music and memories from the last three decades.
When Mehroo Jeejeebhoy met Zubin Mehta in Israel in 1994, he expressed a cherished dream to bring the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra to India. “Will you be able to handle it if I bring the whole Orchestra?” he asked. Mehroo was excited to take up the challenge, and once back in Mumbai, she invited her friends to form a group that would organise a major tour of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in India with the legendary violinists Itzhak Perlman and Gil Shaham in five incredible concerts. Two open air concerts were organised in Sports Stadiums in Delhi and Mumbai to an audience of thousands, many of whom had never heard a live Orchestra.
This was the seed from which the Mehli Mehta Music Foundation was born. Named after Zubin Mehta’s father, Mehli Mehta who was a leading gure in western classical music in Bombay in the 1930s and 1940s, the Foundation has honoured his legacy and grown into a major cultural institution.
While we all know about the marvellous music, the fantastic ‘Sangat’ Chamber Music Festival, the performers that it has brought to the city and the hundreds of children it has trained in western classical music, ‘Encore’ goes behind the scenes to tell the hidden tales of missed flights, bureaucratic hurdles, broken piano strings, pre-concert nerves and frogs in concert venues.
But the MMMF is not just about major performances over the years. The Foundation saw a music school open in 2002 with about 12 children. In subsequent years, thousands of children have passed through its portals, starting at the age of 8 months and staying as long as they wish! Many have graduated and pursued careers abroad.
Music therapy classes have helped many children with special needs. Taking music to over a 1000 children in underserved communities and schools, has had a great impact on children from underprivileged backgrounds.
The MMMF now continues its journey onwards with renewed fervour and the commitment to keep western classical music alive in Mumbai – a city with a rich multicultural environment. (By Kareena Gadiali)
