4 min readNew DelhiMay 9, 2026 10:03 AM IST
Painted across the side of a residential block in New Delhi’s Lodhi Art District, a mural featuring a towering black-and-white portrait of renowned India-born conductor Zubin Mehta beside an orchestra being conducted by him, was inaugurated in the Capital’s open-air art space on Friday.
Led by Reuven Azar, Ambassador of the State of Israel to India, the commemoration, which comes just after Mehta’s 90th birthday on April 29, intends to celebrate “the bond between India and Israel,” said Azar, as Mehta conducting Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra played in the background.
Commissioned by the Israeli embassy almost a year ago, the mural was executed by members of Delhi-based art platform ImageNation. After securing permissions from the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), the artists, led by Akshat Sinha and Yashika Gupta of ImageNation, took about four months to create the mural. Deepak Saini, 32, the mural’s lead artist, said he had never met Mehta and worked on the portrait using a reference photo he found most striking.
Set against a teal background, with government residential housing windows facing the street, the mural also features sheet music notes wafting above a musically absorbed orchestra drawn in classic black-and-white outfits. The large portrait, showing Mehta in a turtleneck, depicts a younger version of the maestro, who grew up in Mumbai. Mehta first acquired Western melodies by listening to his father and musician Mehli Mehta’s collection of one-sided 78 RPM records and Bombay String Quartet performances in their living room at the upscale Cuffe Parade locality in Mumbai.
He has been associated with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra since 1961, starting initially as a guest conductor, then becoming the orchestra’s music director in 1977, and later serving as ‘conductor for life’ since 1981. He was only 25 when he first conducted the Israel Philharmonic and has since performed over 5,000 concerts with the orchestra, including in countries where Israel has not been welcome politically.
At the site of the mural, Azar spoke of the history of the Israel Philharmonic and how, in 1936, the orchestra was formed by gathering Jewish musicians from Europe “in a period when darkness was looming over Europe, when Jewish musicians were being fired and persecuted.”
Azar spoke of Polish violinist Bronisław Huberman, who invited Jewish musicians to be a part of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra “to save them and their families from extermination by the Nazis”. “This is the same year (1936) that another famous musician was born, and that was Zubin Mehta, and for 70 years he has been working with the Israel Philharmonic,” he said.
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Azar also noted that the orchestra’s performances around the world had become so sought-after that securing a booking required convincing them at least two years in advance.
Last January, Mehta drew attention when he cancelled all his engagements in Israel, citing his disagreement with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent policies. “I do not agree with PM Netanyahu’s policies and this is the reason that led me to take the decision that includes the cancellation of all my engagements for the season,” Mehta had said to the press in Florence before his concert before saying the same in Mumbai.
He remains committed, however, to the Spain-based West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, founded by his friend, the Jewish conductor Daniel Barenboim, who holds both Israeli and Palestinian citizenship. The orchestra comprises Israeli and Palestinian musicians who perform together, as part of Barenboim’s effort to bring the two communities closer. Before the recent Israel-Palestine conflict began, Mehta also visited Ramallah in Palestine and worked with Arabic musicians, in the hope that the orchestra would one day include artists from both communities.
