Community hub
Recent from talks
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Bejun Mehta
Bejun Mehta (born 29 June 1968) is an American countertenor and voice teacher. He has been awarded the Echo Klassik, the Gramophone Award, Le Diamant d’Opera Magazine,[citation needed] the Choc de Classica, the Traetta Prize, and been nominated for the Grammy Award, the Laurence Olivier Award, and the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik. Writing in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Michael Stallknecht called him "arguably the best counter tenor in the world today."
Mehta was born in Laurinburg, North Carolina, and grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan. His father, Dady Mehta, a pianist born in Shanghai, China, to Parsi parents from India, is a cousin of conductor Zubin Mehta. His father was professor of piano at Eastern Michigan University. His mother, Martha Ritchey Mehta of Altoona, Pennsylvania, was a soprano and journalist who worked in the development office of the University of Michigan Museum of Art, and she was her son's first voice teacher. His brother, Navroj Mehta, is a violinist and the artistic director of the Ventura Music Festival.
From the age of nine through fifteen, Mehta was a solo boy soprano in concerts and recordings. Of his CD for the Delos label in 1983 (Bejun DE 3019), Leonard Bernstein commented, "It is hard to believe the richness and maturity of musical understanding in this adolescent boy." He was named by the magazine Stereo Review as the Debut Recording Artist of the Year.
After his voice changed, Mehta studied the cello, both as a soloist and orchestral player, under Aldo Parisot at Yale University. Mehta graduated from Yale University with a degree in German literature. At the same time he completed an internship at Delos, where he had recorded as a boy. This led to work as an independent recording producer for labels such as Sony/CBS, BMG/RCA, Deutsche Grammophon, and Delos. His production of Janos Starker’s final recording of Bach’s Cello Suites (BMG/RCA 61436) won the 1997 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance without orchestra.
Mehta sang for several years as a baritone without much success. "I was average, just average," he said. He began to experiment with singing in the countertenor range after reading a 1997 New Yorker profile of the countertenor David Daniels, whose early experiences seemed to mirror his own.
In 1998 he attended the Music Academy of the West summer conservatory program, where Marilyn Horne, who knew of his work as a boy soprano, offered him sponsorship through the Marilyn Horne Foundation, an organization that works to develop new talent and preserve the art of song recital. He made his operatic debut as a countertenor that same year as Armindo in a New York City Opera production of Partenope by Handel. Two months later he substituted for David Daniels, who was taken ill during an international concert tour.
Mehta regularly performs the great roles of his repertoire with leading opera houses such as Covent Garden, Bavarian State Opera, Opéra National de Paris, Théâtre du Châtelet, La Scala, Theater an der Wien, Berlin State Opera, La Monnaie, Netherlands Opera, Barcelona's Liceu, Teatro Real in Madrid, Metropolitan Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera, Los Angeles Opera, San Francisco Opera, and New York City Opera. He has performed at the festivals of Salzburg, Glyndebourne, Edinburgh, Aix-en-Provence, and Verbier, and at the London BBC Proms.
Mehta performs programmes with repertoire ranging from Baroque to contemporary music. He has performed at Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, London's Wigmore Hall, the Konzerthaus, Vienna and the Wiener Musikverein, Carnegie Hall and Zankel Hall, New York, the 92nd Street Y, Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels, Valencia's Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, Madrid's Teatro de la Zarzuela, Cité de la Musique, Paris, the Prinzregententheater Munich, and the festivals of Edinburgh, San Sebastian, Verbier, Schleswig-Holstein, and the BBC Proms in London. Mehta has also conducted the Belgian Baroque Orchestra B'Rock in concerts of Haydn and Mozart symphonies.
Hub AI
Bejun Mehta AI simulator
(@Bejun Mehta_simulator)
Bejun Mehta
Bejun Mehta (born 29 June 1968) is an American countertenor and voice teacher. He has been awarded the Echo Klassik, the Gramophone Award, Le Diamant d’Opera Magazine,[citation needed] the Choc de Classica, the Traetta Prize, and been nominated for the Grammy Award, the Laurence Olivier Award, and the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik. Writing in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Michael Stallknecht called him "arguably the best counter tenor in the world today."
Mehta was born in Laurinburg, North Carolina, and grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan. His father, Dady Mehta, a pianist born in Shanghai, China, to Parsi parents from India, is a cousin of conductor Zubin Mehta. His father was professor of piano at Eastern Michigan University. His mother, Martha Ritchey Mehta of Altoona, Pennsylvania, was a soprano and journalist who worked in the development office of the University of Michigan Museum of Art, and she was her son's first voice teacher. His brother, Navroj Mehta, is a violinist and the artistic director of the Ventura Music Festival.
From the age of nine through fifteen, Mehta was a solo boy soprano in concerts and recordings. Of his CD for the Delos label in 1983 (Bejun DE 3019), Leonard Bernstein commented, "It is hard to believe the richness and maturity of musical understanding in this adolescent boy." He was named by the magazine Stereo Review as the Debut Recording Artist of the Year.
After his voice changed, Mehta studied the cello, both as a soloist and orchestral player, under Aldo Parisot at Yale University. Mehta graduated from Yale University with a degree in German literature. At the same time he completed an internship at Delos, where he had recorded as a boy. This led to work as an independent recording producer for labels such as Sony/CBS, BMG/RCA, Deutsche Grammophon, and Delos. His production of Janos Starker’s final recording of Bach’s Cello Suites (BMG/RCA 61436) won the 1997 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance without orchestra.
Mehta sang for several years as a baritone without much success. "I was average, just average," he said. He began to experiment with singing in the countertenor range after reading a 1997 New Yorker profile of the countertenor David Daniels, whose early experiences seemed to mirror his own.
In 1998 he attended the Music Academy of the West summer conservatory program, where Marilyn Horne, who knew of his work as a boy soprano, offered him sponsorship through the Marilyn Horne Foundation, an organization that works to develop new talent and preserve the art of song recital. He made his operatic debut as a countertenor that same year as Armindo in a New York City Opera production of Partenope by Handel. Two months later he substituted for David Daniels, who was taken ill during an international concert tour.
Mehta regularly performs the great roles of his repertoire with leading opera houses such as Covent Garden, Bavarian State Opera, Opéra National de Paris, Théâtre du Châtelet, La Scala, Theater an der Wien, Berlin State Opera, La Monnaie, Netherlands Opera, Barcelona's Liceu, Teatro Real in Madrid, Metropolitan Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera, Los Angeles Opera, San Francisco Opera, and New York City Opera. He has performed at the festivals of Salzburg, Glyndebourne, Edinburgh, Aix-en-Provence, and Verbier, and at the London BBC Proms.
Mehta performs programmes with repertoire ranging from Baroque to contemporary music. He has performed at Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, London's Wigmore Hall, the Konzerthaus, Vienna and the Wiener Musikverein, Carnegie Hall and Zankel Hall, New York, the 92nd Street Y, Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels, Valencia's Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, Madrid's Teatro de la Zarzuela, Cité de la Musique, Paris, the Prinzregententheater Munich, and the festivals of Edinburgh, San Sebastian, Verbier, Schleswig-Holstein, and the BBC Proms in London. Mehta has also conducted the Belgian Baroque Orchestra B'Rock in concerts of Haydn and Mozart symphonies.