New Delhi: After Pandit Ravi Shankar, it is Zubin Mehta who has been honored with the noted Tagore Award for Cultural Harmony. The Award was started last year to mark the 150th Birth Anniversary of Acharya Rabindranath Tagore.
The award carries an amount of Rs. 1 crore, a citation in a scroll, a plaque as well as an exquisite traditional handicraft/handloom item. The award is open to all persons regardless of nationality, race, language, caste, creed or sex.
A High-level Jury under the Chairmanship of Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh and comprising the Chief Justice of India, Justice Altamas Kabir, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, Smt. Sushma Swaraj and Shri Gopalkrishna Gandhi after detailed discussions on 4th July, 2013, unanimously decided to select Shri Zubin Mehta to be the second recipient of the Tagore Award, 2013 in recognition of his outstanding contribution to cultural harmony.
Zubin Mehta is an Indian Parsi conductor of western classical music.
An Indian by birth, he holds dual citizenship of India and United States. Mehta is an honorary citizen of Florence and Tel Aviv.
In 2005, he was voted the 117th-greatest Israeli of all time, in a poll by the Israeli news website Ynet to determine whom the general public considered the 200 Greatest Israelis. Mehta’s life has been documented in films like Portrait of Zubin Mehta and Zubin and I.