Music is a fundamental human right: Nirupama Menon Rao

Former foreign secretary Nirupama Menon Rao, who was performing at a Western Classical concert, said music is a fundamental human right.

Rao led the Saturday concert 'Gitanjali: An offering of song', along with Sri Lankan musicians Soundarie David Rodrigo and Neranjan de Silva.

"I always regard music as a fundamental human right. The Right to Music. Let's see what unites us, the subcontinent - the shared history... There is a shared culture and music definitely transcends barriers... There is a shared cultural space, a kind of connective consciousness.

"I believe you can apply the practice of music to that shared sense not only of geography but of culture, ethnicity, language and religion," she said.

The event was organised by Trivandrum Centre for Performing Arts (TCPA) in collaboration with Rao's South Asian Symphony Foundation (SASF).

She was in conversation with former diplomat T P Sreenivasan.

Further, Rao dismissed the notion that Western music is elitist.

"Look at our Bollywood music. So much is inspired from the Western music. We play a lot of Western sports, like tennis, cricket, etc. (Then) Why not Western music? Why can't a young Indian or south Asian excel and become like these musical geniuses from China, or South Korea or Japan. That's a way of getting ahead of the world, making a name for India," she said.

"Why do we consider the whole concept of this Western music to be elitist? Every Indian town has got bands now. Someone told me that they didn't turn towards piano because Indian hands are not meant for piano. How do they get these notions? These are complexes," she added.

She said after retirement from her four-decade-long diplomatic career, she chose to pursue her passion for music.

Rao said she wanted to engage in public diplomacy through music.

"Let me say my levels of ambition was quite modest. I am not here to solve intractable, political problems that have defied solutions for over seven decades now. I think that requires political vision. Perhaps a new generation of south Asians and how regionalism in our part of the world is going to trump nationalism. I don't think we have seen the light as far as that is concerned as yet," she said.

She emphasised that hers was not a political but a humanitarian project.

"This is not about me trying to solve the world problems. But this is a humanitarian one. It has a lot to do with public diplomacy. But more than that, it transcends in to the area of soft power..." she said.

Rodrigo, who was on the piano, is the founder and music director of Sri Lanka's premiere ensemble 'Soul Sounds', the first choir from the island nation to perform and win awards on international platforms.

Silva, a fellow of London's Trinity College of Music, was on the keyboard.

Rao started with the a spiritual ode 'Amazing Grace' by English poet John Newton and segued into 'Three Songs of Araby'.

She also performed 'The Swallow Song', 'Send in the Clowns' among many others and ended with 'A Perfect Day', a song that galvanised New York when people celebrated the end of World War and the victory.