Mervon Mehta previously held senior programming positions with the Ravinia Festival in Chicago and the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia.Lisa Sakulensky/Supplied
When Mervon Mehta was approached by the Royal Conservatory of Music to run its performing arts component, its state-of-the-art centrepiece theatre was nothing more than a hole in the ground.
The dirt pit was filled in 2009 with Koerner Hall, which Mehta in turn filled with some 1,200 classical, pop, jazz and blues concerts over 17 seasons as executive director of performing arts for the conservatory − everyone from classical pianist Andras Schiff to sitarist Ravi Shankar, from banjoist Bela Fleck to saxophonist Wayne Shorter, and from actor Bill Murray to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Riccardo Muti.
This month the Vienna-born, Montreal-raised son of renowned conductor Zubin Mehta steps down from his role as conservatory’s programmer. He previously held senior programming positions with the Ravinia Festival in Chicago and the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia.
The 67-year-old says he will travel and spend time with his family while keeping his hand in the business on a few unspecified projects involving new theatres. Mehta recently spoke to The Globe and Mail in his office, after he was paid tribute by colleagues and musicians at Koerner Hall.
‘My other jobs were really just stepping stones to get here,’ Mehta says.Supplied
During your speech at the sendoff event, you said you would explain why you’re leaving. I’m not sure you really did, though. So, why?
A number of reasons, all positive. Nobody’s pushing me out. I woke up a few months ago. My son was in university. He’s 22 and he’s never known a week when I wasn’t in a theatre four nights out of seven. Now he’s graduating. He wants to take a gap year, and I want to hang out with him. Whether he wants to hang out with me is another question.
That’s the personal side of leaving. What about the professional reason?
The other part of it is 17 years here and 18 years combined in Chicago and Philadelphia, 150 shows per year. It does take a toll. You have to sit in on the marketing meetings and the HR meetings. There are the budgets and reporting to the boards. The board says you made this much money last year, how come you’re not at two per cent more this year? It can be tedious. The music is not − it’s what we love to do. If that’s all there was to the job, I would stay another 10 or 15 years.
Where do things stand with hiring your replacement?
I’m not very involved with that, though I did give a few names. There was not a big international search. A couple of people raised their hand indicating interest. I took them to lunch and they met the team. Now I’ve stepped back from the process. But if it works out, I think it will be a bit of coup. Unlike when they hired me [laughs].
Actually, in the Globe article introducing you to our readers, James Bradshaw described you as a rising international force at the time you were hired.
Really? I don’t remember that quote. I knew a lot of agents. I knew a lot of artists. Maybe James was trying to build up my résumé. As I look back now, my other jobs were really just stepping stones to get here.
When you took the job here, didn’t people in the United States warn you it was a backward career move?
A few agents and venue-manager friends in the U.S. advised against it. They told me that Toronto was not New York, and that I’d be forgotten. Clearly, they hadn’t been to Toronto. They did not know Toronto.
What Koerner Hall concerts are you most proud of?
There’s a lot. Gilberto Gil in his last days of performing, in 2015. He was in his 70s. He sat down on his chair with an acoustic guitar and played bossa nova. I had booked him previously with large bands in large halls, but to have him here almost unplugged was amazing. Youssou N’Dour is another concert that stands out.
He and his band performed at Koerner Hall on the same day as the terrorist attacks by the Islamic State in Paris on Nov. 13, 2015.
That’s right. They were loading in at noon and sound checking when we heard the news of the massacre at the Bataclan concert hall. Youssou and his band were Africans, but they were based in Paris. They knew the stagehands at the Bataclan. I met with Youssou and told them if they can’t go on, let me know. And he said, “absolutely not,” that this was the time they had to go on. He gave an emotional concert and talked about the brotherhood of man coming together.
He is a Muslim, correct?
Yes. I sat there thinking that if this concert had been held in Philadelphia or Chicago, having an African Muslim artist on a night after a terrorist attack, half the people would have stayed at home out of fear. There would have been police all over the place. But this was Toronto. People came to the concert because of what happened in Paris. They were not scared away. They came to commune with Youssou.
This interview has been edited and condensed.