Music knows no country: Ilaiyaraja

Washington: Legendary Tamil songwriter and composer Ilaiyaraja has said music transcends countries and knows no boundaries, in wake of the ongoing row over MNS threat to Pakistani artists to leave India.

In music there is no country, there is no time... No nothing. Music is music, Ilaiyaraja told reporters during a news conference here yesterday. Ilaiyaraja, 73, is currently on a tour of several US cities.

A day earlier he performed live in New Jersey and his show was attended by thousands of Indian-Americans in a suburb of Washington DC, his first performance ever in the national capital area.

The tour has been organised to commemorate Ilaiyaraja’s achievement of composing music for over thousand films, said Rjan Natarajan, a former Maryland Secretary of State and an official in the Clinton Campaign.

Ilaiyaraja refused to comment on his impression about A R Rahman, who at the beginning of his career worked with him. Why do you ask me (about A R Rahman)? You have the respect. You have an idea about him, you have it, he told a popular local Indian American television anchor when asked about A R Rahman. But you should not expect that I must have the same expression, Ilaiyaraja said.

PTI