8. SPARE TIME

Frank J. Oteri: With all the stuff that you're doing, and I know you have a very busy schedule, what do you do in your spare time? What music do you listen to? Do you have time to do that?

Zarin Mehta: Well, it's not a question of having time. I have to make the time because I have to listen to so many things, tapes and records of young individuals from our Rising Stars concerts, other things that, you know, I get. I just bought the complete recordings of Martha Argerich. You know, I want to listen to that.

Frank J. Oteri: Right.

Selling balloons at Ravinia photo by Melissa Richard

Zarin Mehta: I don't listen to pop.

Frank J. Oteri: Do you listen to jazz?

Zarin Mehta: I listen to less jazz than I used to because of the time. So my listening now is coming more on the basis of things I need to listen to, for purposes of either auditioning the individual, or some, a piece that I wanted to program and I want to rehear it to see how it is, you know, that sort of thing.

Frank J. Oteri: Any new music that you've listened to in the past year that...?

Zarin Mehta: A man called Dashow sent me a couple of records of electronic music and I don't know quite where to put it.

Frank J. Oteri: James Dashow?

Zarin Mehta: You know, that sort of thing. But it's kind of fun to listen to those things. But you know, new music, it's not really new music so much as often, I will listen to something of Messiaen ...Trois Petite Liturgies for instance, okay? We've performed it in Montreal, I've heard it, but you know, it's not something that I know as I would know a, say, Beethoven or Brahms Symphony. So I would listen to it again to see how it would work in the atmosphere that I'm talking about. So I would listen to things on that basis.

Frank J. Oteri: Any chance of James Dashow's electronic music or the Messiaen turning up at Ravinia in the next couple of years?

Zarin Mehta: I don't know. That's why I say I have to find the right way of doing it. The right programmatic mix and so on. And the people to do it.

Frank J. Oteri: Right. Well, it was a tremendous pleasure to meet with you here at this hotel, and thank you for your time, and I hope to get to Ravinia again soon.

Zarin Mehta: A pleasure. You're welcome any time.

  

Zarin Mehta Interview

1.	Ravinia's Beginnings and Now
2.	Introducing Music Through a Summer Festival
3.	Life Before Ravinia
4.	Crossover and New Audiences
5.	The Expansion of the Orchestra Season
6.	The Internet
7.	Developing Younger Performers and New Repertoire
8.	Spare Time

Supporting Materials
Biography
Webliography

In The First Person Home

In The First Person Home

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