Srinagar concert will happen, let the music speak: Zubin Mehta

If 1981 was too early to play Tristan & Isolde by Richard Wagner, Adolf Hitler’s favourite composer, in a Tel Aviv auditorium, master conductor Zubin Mehta’s only comment to a protesting audience was that Israel was a democratic country and its people should welcome music from everywhere. On Saturday, in the Shalimar Bagh garden on the banks of the Dal lake in Srinagar, Mehta will be taking on protests to his concert in his usual quiet style, conducting music by Kashmiri legend Pt Bhajan Sopori’s son Abhay Sopori, alongside some Beethoven, Haydn and Tchaikovsky.

In an interview to Mumbai Mirror hours before he boarded a flight to India for the Kashmir concert and two other concerts in Mumbai’s NCPA, Mehta said he is confident that the Shalimar Bagh concert, a dream venue for him, would not be disrupted.

"Let the music speak for itself," Mehta told Mumbai Mirror. "It will happen, and will be broadcast across 24 European countries. You'll see it on Doordarshan.

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Mehta also spoke to the paper about his love for Mumbai and the heartening growth in audiences enthused by music concerts.

The Kashmir concert has been opposed by the Hurriyat and others arguing that the event attempts to give the region a veneer of having normalized when the truth is far from that. The event is organised by the German Embassy in New Delhi.

While Hurriyat hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani called for a general strike in the valley to protest the concert, three militant organisations threatened to target the event through a letter warning that mujahideen would target western tourists. The letter is reported to have said that Kashmir being a disputed territory, such events should not be held there.

Until now, the J & K government and the German embassy’s administration appear keen to go ahead with the show.

German ambassador Michael Steiner earlier this week conducted an inspection of the venue, the sprawling gardens that have been given a renovation

Even as Kashmiris prepared for protests at mosques after evening prayers on Friday, security was stepped up across the state and near the venue.