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 The 83-year-old Indian conductor capped off thousands of
performances as music director of the renowned symphony
orchestra in a series of farewell concerts in Tel Aviv this
week, making way for Lahav Shani, 30, to take the reins.
Shani has dazzled audiences for over a decade as both conductor
and pianist, building an enviable portfolio of podium
appointments in Europe and debasing questions about his youth
with his virtuosic musical bravado.
"There's no way any conductor could have done all 104 symphonies
of Haydn, so there's lots left for Lahav," Mehta told Reuters in
an interview with the duo, where he gave advice to and talked
repertoire with Shani, who becomes music director in 2020.
Shani began piano studies while growing up in Tel Aviv, and with
Mehta's encouragement, later expanded his training to orchestral
conducting at Berlin's esteemed Academy of Music Hanns Eisler.
"I (listened) to the orchestra with the maestro (Mehta) many
times as a child," Shani said. "When I was a student, I learned
from the musicians in the orchestra. They were my teachers for
chamber music (and) double bass."
Shani first performed with the 100-member orchestra when he was
18, playing Tchaikovsky's Piano Concert No. 1. His active
schedule as a pianist this season includes performances of
Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Staatskapelle
Berlin.
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He concurrently serves as chief conductor of the Rotterdam
Philharmonic -- its youngest ever -- and principal guest conductor
of the Vienna Symphony.
Israeli classical music fans celebrate Shani's appointment but say
Mehta's retirement marks the end of an era.
The Mumbai-born conductor's tenure with the ensemble, founded in
1936 as the Palestine Orchestra when the region was under British
rule, has spanned much of Israel's dramatic history since the
country's founding in 1948.
Mehta's storied six-decade career also saw him lead the philharmonic
orchestras of New York and Los Angeles and the main opera houses of
Munich and Florence.
But Israel's orchestra was a mainstay throughout. Mehta says he
stayed on as music adviser and director since 1969, in part out of
admiration for an Israeli audience that cherishes the arts during
times of conflict.
Mehta recalled a Tel Aviv performance during the height of a war
with Gaza's Hamas militant group, where rocket sirens forced him to
pause the concert.
"Twenty minutes later, we continue. Audience never left," he said.
"In times of crisis, the audience never stays home."
(Reporting by Rami Ayyub; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
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