Rajesh Mehta was born in Calcutta in 1964, grew up in the U.S. from 1970 and studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) where he graduated in the History of Ideas and Electrical Engineering in 1986. After a four year career as a teacher/lecturer of Mathematics and the Sciences as well as an acoustical engineer working on the design of silencers, Mehta embarked on a career in music. He spent a year at the Mills College Contemporary Music Center in 1989 studying with Anthony Braxton and has been active as a professional musician in Europe since 1991- first based in Amsterdam and currently in Berlin.
He co-founded the New Music Record Label True Muze Records, Hamburg in 1998 with Vlatko Kucan and the late Peter Niklas Wilson who died in 2003 and which subsequently Rajesh Mehta resigned from. True Muze is currently operated by Vlatko Kucan.
Architectural thinking permeates various aspects of Mehta's work as a musician and composer and these are integrated into his ongoing Music-Architecture project "Sounding Buildings". Architect Daniel Libeskind invited Mehta to present his work in Libeskind's seminar in Karlsruhe, Germany in 2002 and 2003.
Mehta has redefined the architecture of the trumpet through his self-designed "Hybrid Trumpet" which connects various trumpets and sound transforming devices together by plastic tubing.
Mehta has created his own graphical notational/composition system which uses a Design-Construction approach towards the musical composition on his collaborative DVD project "Inaugurating M.I.T's Simmons Hall" with the building's Architect Steven Holl in 2002.
He was an artist-in-resident in Cork, Ireland in 2004 and launched the "cORKAstra" - an ensemble of adventurous musicians based in Cork and he is preparing a live Sounding Buildings project for the Glucksman Gallery in October, 2005 when Cork will be European Cultural Capital.
Concerts and tours with his own groups such as:
Mehta-Lovens duo with German improviser-percussionist Paul Lovens, The Innovative Music Meeting Trio with Arditti String Quartet Cellist Rohan de Saram and South Indian Percussion master Trichy Sankaran; The Mehta-Metric Ensemble with percussionist Ray Kaczynski, Reed player Vlatko Kucan, Violonist/Violist Aleks Kolkowski a.o.and as a guest with major jazz, improvising, contemporary classical, Indian musicians, etc. in International Venues/Festivals such as: Indian Art Museum Berlin, PassionsKirche, Haus Der Kulturen der Welt, Exiles Festival- Tacheles; Galerie Katrin Rabus, Bremen; Fortbildings Zentrum Neue Musik, Lüneburg; Contemporary Dance Festival, Mumbai India; Zagreb New Music Biennale; National Gallery, Prague; Ring Ring Festival, Belgrade; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Roulette, New York, Wiener Konzerthaus, Vienna, WIM, Zurich, The Empty Bottle, Chicago and many others.
