Renowned conductor Zubin Mehta mural unveiled at Delhi’s Lodhi Art District

A mural featuring a towering black-and-white portrait of renowned India-born conductor Zubin Mehta alongside an orchestra being conducted by him was inaugurated at New Delhi’s Lodhi Art District on Friday (Source: Photo by Amit Mehra)

Led by Reuven Azar, Ambassador of the State of Israel to India, the commemoration intends to celebrate “the bond between India and Israel,” said Azar (Source: Photo by Amit Mehra)

Azar spoke about the history of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, noting that in 1936 it was formed by gathering Jewish musicians from Europe during a period when they were being fired and persecuted as darkness loomed over Europe (Source: Photo by Amit Mehra)

Commissioned by the Israeli embassy almost a year ago, the mural was executed by members of Delhi-based art platform ImageNation (Source: Photo by Amit Mehra)

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 (Source: Photo by Amit Mehra)

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 (Source: Photo by Amit Mehra)

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 (Source: Photo by Amit Mehra)

The large portrait, showing Mehta in a turtleneck, depicts a younger version of the maestro, who grew up in Mumbai (Source: Photo by Amit Mehra)

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 (Source: Photo by Amit Mehra)

Mehta 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 (Source: Photo by Amit Mehra)