Zubin Mehta (born 29 April 1936) is an Indian conductor of Western classical music. Mehta's father was the founder of the Bombay Symphony Orchestra, and Mehta received his early musical education from him. When he was 18, he enrolled in the Vienna state music academy, from which he graduated after three years with a diploma as a conductor. He began winning international competitions and conducted the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic at age 21. Beginning in the 1960s, Mehta gained experience by substituting for celebrated maestros throughout the world. Mehta was music director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra from 1961 to 1967 and of the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1962 to 1978, the youngest music director ever for any major North American orchestra. In 1969, he was appointed Music Adviser to the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and in 1981 he became its Music Director for Life. From 1978 to 1991, Mehta was music director of the New York Philharmonic. He was chief conductor of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence from 1985 to 2017.  His has been a career of firsts: taking the New York Philharmonic to Harlem, conducting a Ravi Shankar Concerto with the London Philharmonic, the "actual setting" performance of Tosca, conducting Mahler's Resurrection Symphony at Buchenwald, a tsunami memorial concert in Chennai, etc. - a career requiring boundless energy and imagination.