The Indian-born Western classical music conductor Zubin Mehta is among the five stalwarts from the arts and entertainment field who will be honoured by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts this year.

Since their inception in 1978, the Kennedy Center Honors have been compared to a knighthood in Britain, or the French Legion of Honour - the quintessential reward for a lifetime's endeavour.

Zubin Mehta was born in Mumbai in April 29, 1936 and grew up in a musical environment. His father Mehli Mehta was a violinist and founding conductor of the Bombay Symphony Orchestra. Zubin did his education at Mumbai’s St Mary's High School.

Despite this musical influence, Zubin's initial field of study was in medicine. At the age of eighteen, he abandoned his medical career to attend the Academy of Music in Vienna, under the eminent instructor Hans Swarowsky.

In 1958, he made his conducting debut in Vienna. That same year he won the International Conducting Competition in Liverpool and was appointed assistant conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.

In 1961, at the age of 26, he became the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s youngest permanent conductor and, at the same time, Montreal Symphony Orchestra’s principal conductor. He was also the first man to simultaneously lead two major North American Orchestras.

In 1978 he became Music Director of the New York Philharmonic commencing a tenure lasting 13 years, the longest in the orchestra's history and, since 1985, he has been chief conductor of the Maggio Musicale in Florence.

The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, with whom he had been associated with since 1969 in various capacities, made him their music director for life in 1981. He has conducted over 2,000 concerts with this orchestra.

Zubin Mehta has been music director of the Bavarian State Opera and the Bavarian State Orchestra since 1998.

In 2001, the Government of India honoured him with the Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian award.

He is often referred to as a messenger of music and it is justified by his efforts to bridge gaps between different cultures.

In 1988, Mehta and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra performed together with the State Symphony Orchestra of the Soviet Ministry of Culture in Moscow’s Gorky Park.

In June 1994, Mehta and the Sarajevo Symphony Orchestra performed Mozart’s Requiem in the ruins of the National Library.

When he brought the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra to India in November 1994, he helped reinstate the cultural dialogue that had become silent for three decades.

On 26 December 2005, the first anniversary of the Indian Ocean Tsunami, Zubin Mehta along with the Bavarian State Orchestra performed for the first time in Chennai at the world famous "Madras Music Academy".

Mehta and the other recipients of 2006 Kennedy Center Honors will be saluted by stars from the world of the performing arts at a gala performance in the Kennedy Center's Opera House in Washington on December 3, which will be attended, among others, by US President George W. Bush and his wife, Laura Bush.

Mehta is married to Nancy Kovack, a former American film and television actress and lives in Los Angeles. He has a son, Merwin, and daughter, Zarina.