On the steamiest of afternoons, Mervon Mehta, VP of programming at the Kimmel Center, is chilling, listening to violinist Mark O’Connor in soundcheck.

The same cannot be said of the unseated souls at Mehta's World Music Wednesdays. They are dancing and drinking at the summer's sultriest party.

The likes of Afro-Cubano-salsa hoppers Yerba Buena and the slinky Senegalese Orchestre Baobab have laid down beats far more freakish than past Mehta bookings Dave Brubeck and Cecilia Bartoli. That's not to say his shows haven't kicked ass (Buddy Guy, the Marsalises, those Solstice celebrations), and upcoming future gigs with Cassandra Wilson, Simon Shaheen or Oscar Peterson are expected rock as well. But there's something about the Portuguese Piaf of fado, Mariza (July 23), the Guinea-grooving Afropop of Bembeya Jazz (July 30) and dance parties in Commonwealth Plaza that bring the soul to foot-stomping and remove any stuffiness from what audiences may perceive as the Kimmel's pre-eminent demeanor.

"When I sing, I am giving of myself and my culture, of a country that some people in the U.S. may not even have heard of," says Mariza of her desire to play her often-foreign sounds in halls as hallowed as the Kimmel.

"That was the initial goal," says Kimmel President Janice Price of Mehta's nonclassical programming. "To fulfill [builder] Bill Rouse's dream that the Kimmel be the community's performing arts center, reflective of the wide range of populations and cultures that live here."

"If you look at our breadth of programming, I defy anyone to label the Kimmel as vanilla or Caucasian," says Mehta. "[That impression] started with members of the press who can't get beyond the old politics of how the building was built and paid for. But the public? We find that audiences who come in the door once are coming back again and again."

Mehta has always known how to get audiences through the door. It's in his blood. Though currently ensconced in Kimmel life, Mehta recalls a past of sainted aesthetics and entrepreneurship. Born in Vienna, he was first and foremost the scion of world-famous conductor Zubin Mehta and vocal instructor Carmen Mehta. His youth went beyond the typical showbiz kid's, as he was exposed not only to classical and theater musics, but the likes of world music's legends.

"I met Ravi Shankar when I was 7, saw the plays of Shakespeare and Molière. It was all different but all of such high quality." His parents gave him the tools to decipher good from bad in ways that transcend genre, a notion obvious in his booking skills. "Bad classical music is as excruciating as bad pop, a well-crafted song by Bruce Cockburn or Annie Lennox is as valid as one by Schubert or Schumann."

After studying under the legendary teacher Sanford Meisner, Mehta graduated from Manhattan's prestigious Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre. He performed in film, TV and theatrical residencies at the Williamstown Theatre, the Stratford Festival in Ontario and Steppenwolf in Chicago and founded the Neighborhood Group Theatre in New York City.

In Ontario and Chicago, Mehta was made to serve as liaison between management and actors. He found himself "in the webs," as the old showbiz saying goes, and he was hooked. "I wanted to control my destiny. When you work as an actor you are dependent on so many outside forces in order to survive: Assuming that talent is a given, you also need the right scripts, directors, look. The incredible high of being in a good play, in the right part with the right team, is accompanied by the debilitating frustration of going to auditions and rehearsals led by people who have been in the business for about six minutes."

Loving the process made him want to match the right artist to the right audience in the right venue. That led to Chicago's Ravinia Festival, a gig as talent booker for their pop concert series, then director of programming and production, where he booked artists such as Lyle Lovett, Tito Puente, Celia Cruz, the late Babatunde Olatunji and "Œactual' jazz artists during a jazz festival -- no blues, no pop, no smooth jazz, no R&B masquerading as jazz."

The audience responded. So did Janet Price. "I'll let the secret out," jokes Price as to how she knew Mehta. "In another life, Mervon was a wonderful classical Shakespearean actor in Ontario. I was head of marketing, he was a dashing Paris in a production of Romeo and Juliet set in fascist pre-WWII Italy." While she was in arts management at Lincoln Center, she watched his comings and goings. When she went to Kimmel, she got him to come along in February 2002.

"I always loved Philly," says Mehta, who visited the old Robin Hood Dell with his dad. "Freddy Mann showed me around the Mann while it was still under construction. My grandfather was a member of the Curtis String Quartet. I lived here for a brief time in 1961. I'd have been a fool to say no. Now, if only the Flyers could win a few more playoff games."

With the Kimmel, Mehta already has a pretty good record. He claims to have sold out about half of the Kimmel's shows and has had 75-percent capacity houses for the rest. Beyond delicious sold-outs and the bringing of pianist Danilo Perez to the Kimmel's fold as a Philly jazz conduit (via a five-concert series, "Dreaming of Dizzy"), his world-music series took some pushing in the Philly market. "We had a few challenging shows along the way, but if we didn't, you could accuse us of not taking enough risks," he says.

Though he spread the word within the underground by fliering clubs, restaurants and African braiding shops, there were low sales for Brazilian master Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil had to back out. "Gil canceled his tour after being named minister of culture in Brazil. What a concept," jokes Mehta, "a cabinet position that oversees a country's cultural life. Are we the only developed nation that does not have one?" Then there are the everyday troubles a post-9/11 booking community faces with ceased visas for visiting artists (Cuba's Chucho Valdès) or, worse, angry artists (Youssou N'Dour) opposing our government's role in world politics. "We lost a couple of artists but were not hit as hard by visa issues as some other venues. We have had more artist cancellations this year due to health issues, the war in Iraq, snowstorms, pregnancy. "

Mehta's mind is occupied (as yours should be) with his upcoming bookings of Bembeya Jazz ("I dare you to keep still when they play!") and Mariza, the fado innovator whose emotional sound has changed the way Mehta listens to music. "She can rip your heart out one minute and eat it for lunch the next," he says of a woman whose CDs, Fado em Mim and her newest Fado Curvo (Times Square), rival those by fado masters like Amália Rodrigues.

"I feel a scary responsibility when [critics] make comparisons to icons of fado," says Mariza. "When I first started traveling outside of Portugal is when I realized how important fado is in representing the culture of Portugal. That made me want to keep singing fado forever. Now I am finding a way to sing fado in my own personal style."

That strange alluring sound is earmarked by a conscious impurity in the sweet sounds of fado by stretching its scope to touch upon jazz, cabaret, gospel and rock. "Curvo means that which is not straight. Just like life and passion, music goes in different directions. It comes from somewhere and goes somewhere else. I want to sing my music and keep fado as fado. So those other influences are there, because the music must speak to me," she says. "When I am singing, I forget there is an audience. It is very emotional for me to sing. I am baring my soul to all. I do not want to put fado in a museum. It must be new and alive for all."

New and alive and curvaceous -- that sounds like Mehta's bag. And whether it's his Philly jazz series, his Summer Solstice shows or his selection of sweaty world musics, Mervon Mehta says there's a constant for Kimmel's audiences where his productions are concerned: "If it's good, Philadelphians will relate to it."

Mariza performs Wed., July 23, 7:30 p.m., $32, Perelman Theater, 260 S. Broad St., 215-893-1999.