Ilaiyaraaja
Ilaiyaraaja is an Indian musician, composer, arranger, conductor, orchestrator, multi-instrumentalist, lyricist and playback singer popular for his works in Indian cinema, predominantly in Tamil in addition to Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada and Hindi films. Regarded as one of the most prolific composers, in a career spanning over forty-nine years, he has composed over 8,600 songs, provided film scores for about 1,523 feature films in nine languages, and performed in over 20,000 concerts. He is nicknamed "Isaignani" and is often referred to as "Maestro", the title conferred to him by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, London.
In 2013, when CNN-IBN conducted a poll to commemorate 100 years of Indian cinema, Ilaiyaraaja secured 49% of the vote and was adjudged the country's greatest music composer. In 2025, he became the first-ever Asian, as well as Indian film composer to compose, record, and perform live a full Western classical symphony in London. He also composed and orchestrated Thiruvasagam in Symphony - the first Indian oratorio.
Ilaiyaraaja received several awards for his works throughout his career. In 2012, for his creative and experimental works in the field of music, he received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, the highest Indian recognition given to people in the field of performing arts. In 2010 he was awarded the Padma Bhushan, the third-highest civilian honour in India, and in 2018 the Padma Vibhushan, the second-highest civilian award by the government of India. He is a nominated Member of Parliament in the Indian upper house Rajya Sabha since July 2022. A biographical film about his life titled "Ilaiyaraaja" was announced on 20 March 2024.
Early life
Ilaiyaraaja was born as R.Gnanathesigan in a Christian Dalit family in Pannaipuram, at present-day Theni district in Tamil Nadu, India, on 3 June 1943. He however celebrates his birthday on 2 June to honour M. Karunanidhi whose birthdate also falls on 3 June. It was Karunanidhi who gave Ilaiyaraaja the title "Isaignani". At the time of joining school, his father, Daniel Ramasamy changed his name from Gnanathesigan to "Daniel Rasappa," and the people in his village called him "Rasaiah". When he joined Dhanraj Master as a student to learn musical instruments, the master changed his name from "Rasaiah" to "Raja" While working for his first film Annakili, Tamil film producer Panchu Arunachalam added the prefix "Ilaiya" to the name "Raaja", and renamed him as "Ilaiyaraaja", as in the 1970s there was another popular music director with the same suffix, namely A. M. Rajah.Initial exposure to music
Ilaiyaraaja grew up in a rural area and was exposed to a range of Tamil folk music in his formative years. At the age of 14, he joined a travelling musical troupe named "Pavalar Brothers", headed by his elder brother Pavalar Varadharajan, and spent the next decade performing across South India. While working with the troupe, he penned his first composition, a musical adaptation of an elegy written by the Tamil poet laureate, Kannadasan, for India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru. In the initial years he used to set tunes to the songs of his brother Pavalar Varadarajan, who was a communist in then undivided Communist Party of India. He later left to Madras along with brother Bhaskar to learn Music, they had only four-hundred rupees, which their mother procured by selling off the home radio. They knew no one in the city and were confident to live off the payments they would receive by singing for people on the streets.In Madras, he became a student of Master Dhanraj who nurtured his immense potential. Remembering his master, Ilaiyaraaja said, "My master’s tiny room was inhabited by Bach, Haydn, Brahms, Mozart and Beethoven. He trained me in classical music." Ilaiyaraaja emerged as the topper and a gold medalist in classical guitar after taking exam from the Trinity College of Music, London. He also learnt Carnatic music from T. V. Gopalakrishnan.
Career
Session musician and orchestrator
During the 1970s, Ilaiyaraaja played guitar in a band-for-hire, and worked as a session guitarist, keyboardist, and organist for film music composers and directors such as Salil Chowdhury from West Bengal. Chowdhury once remarked that " is going to become the best composer in India". "Our main guitarist in Madras is the best composer in India", he said. After being hired as musical assistant to Kannada film composer G. K. Venkatesh, he worked on 200 film projects, mostly in Kannada cinema. As Venkatesh's assistant, Ilaiyaraaja would orchestrate the melodic outlines developed by Venkatesh, and learn about composing under Venkatesh's guidance. During this period, Ilaiyaraaja also began to write his own scores. To listen to his compositions, he used to persuade Venkatesh's session musicians to play excerpts from his scores during their leisure times.Film score composer
At the start of his career, the music sensibility of Ilaiyaraaja was very different to the film music composed in those days. Even though he spent a lot of his time learning, he "wasn't able to grasp how music was being made for films." However, in 1975 when film producer Panchu Arunachalam was impressed by a song Ilaiyaraaja casually sung, he commissioned him to compose the songs and film score for the Tamil film Annakili. For the soundtrack, Ilaiyaraaja applied techniques of modern popular film music orchestration to Tamil folk poetry and folk song melodies. This resulted in creation of a fusion of Western and Tamil idioms. Initially he was little apprehensive about how his work would be received, he thought musicians in the industry may write him off. However, when Annakili released in 1976, the music became a huge hit. For his following 12 films, Ilaiyaraaja based his compositions on the contemporary film music. Later, when a new wave of films started to come, they opened the space for the kind of music he wanted to explore.Ilaiyaraaja's use of Tamil folk music in his film scores injected new life in the Indian film score milieu. By the mid-1980s, he started gaining increasing stature as a composer and music director in the South Indian film industries. He worked with Indian poets and lyricists such as Kannadasan, Vaali, Vairamuthu, O. N. V. Kurup, Sreekumaran Thampi, Veturi, Acharya Aatreya, Sirivennela Seetharama Sastry, Chi. Udayashankar and Gulzar. Most of his compositions were sung by S. P. Balasubrahmanyam, S. Janaki and K. S. Chithra.
Non-cinematic output
Ilaiyaraaja's first two non-film albums were explorations in the fusion of Indian and Western classical music. The first, How to Name It?, is dedicated to the Carnatic master Tyāgarāja and to J. S. Bach. It features a fusion of the Carnatic form and ragas with Bach partitas, fugues and Baroque musical textures. The second, Nothing But Wind, was performed by flautist Hariprasad Chaurasia and a 50-piece orchestra and takes the conceptual approach suggested in the title—that music is a "natural phenomenon akin to various forms of air currents".He has composed a set of Carnatic kritis which were recorded by electric mandolinist U. Srinivas for the album Ilayaraaja's Classicals on the Mandolin. Ilaiyaraaja has also composed albums of religious/devotional songs. His Guru Ramana Geetam is a cycle of prayer songs inspired by the Hindu mystic Ramana Maharshi, and his Thiruvasakam: A crossover is an oratorio of ancient Tamil poems transcribed partially in English by American lyricist Stephen Schwartz and performed by the Budapest Symphony Orchestra. His most recent release is a world music-oriented album called The Music Messiah. In 2025, he became the first asian to debut a western classical symphony in London
composed his first English classical symphony “Valiant”, performed by Royal Scottish National Orchestra.
In May 2020, he composed a song titled Bharath Bhoomi, as tribute to the people working amid COVID-19 pandemic. The song was crooned by S. P Balasubrahmanyam and the video of the song was unveiled by Ilaiyaraaja on his YouTube channel on 30 May 2020, in Tamil and Hindi.
On his birthday in 2020, Ilaiyaraaja announced the upcoming launch of his 'Isai OTT' app. He stated that the app would contain much more than just his songs, like behind-the-scenes trivia about how each song was conceived, produced, and delivered, as well as collaborations with other musicians.
Ilaiyaraaja's song 'Naanthaan Ungappanda' from the 1981 film Ram Lakshman was part of the playlist for the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics.
His compositions Paayum Puli Title Music and Ilamai Itho were part of the soundtrack of Ashim Ahluwalia's 2012 Cannes Film Festival entry, Miss Lovely. The Lovebirds incorporated a section of Ilaiyaraaja's "Oru kili" soundtrack composed for the movie Aanandha Kummi as background music in its official trailer.
The Black Eyed Peas sampled the Ilaiyaraaja's composition "Unakkum Ennakum" from Sri Raghavendra for the song "The Elephunk Theme" in Elephunk.
Ilaiyaraaja's song "Mella Mella Ennaithottu" from Vaazhkai was sampled by Rabbit Mac in the song Sempoi. Popular American rapper Meek Mill sampled one of Ilaiyaraaja's hit songs for Indian Bounce.
The alternative artist M.I.A. sampled "Kaatukuyilu" from the film Thalapathi for her song "Bamboo Banga" on the album Kala.
Alphant sampled Ilaiyaraaja's music for his song An Indian Dream. Gonjasufi sampled Ilaiyaraaja's "Yeh Hawa Yeh Fiza" from the movie Sadma.
Live performances
Ilaiyaraaja rarely performs his music live. His first major live performance since his debut was a four-hour concert held at the Jawaharlal Nehru Indoor Stadium in Chennai, India, on 16 October 2005. He performed in 2004 in Italy at the Teatro Comunale di Modena, an event-concert presented for the 14th edition of Angelica, Festival Internazionale Di Musica, co-produced with the L'Altro Suono Festival.A television retrospective titled Ithu Ilaiyaraja was produced, chronicling his career. He last performed live at the audio release function of the film Dhoni and before that, he performed a programme that was conducted and telecasted by Jaya TV titled Enrendrum Raja on 28 December 2011 at Jahawarlal Nehru Indoor Stadium, Chennai.
On 5 September 2012, Ilayaraja performed in a live concert in Chennai with the Hungarian National Philharmonic orchestra; during this event the music launch of his films Neethaane En Ponvasantham and Yeto Vellipoyindhi Manasu took place. On 23 September 2012, he performed live in Bangalore at National High School Grounds.
On 16 February 2013, Ilayaraja made his first appearance in North America performing at the Rogers Centre in Toronto, Canada. The Toronto concert was promoted by Trinity Events for Vijay TV in India and produced by Sandy Audio Visual SAV Productions with PA+. Following his show at Toronto, Ilaiyaraaja also performed at the Prudential Center Newark, New Jersey, on 23 February 2013 and at the HP Pavilion at San Jose on 1March 2013. After his North America tour, he made a live performance at The O2 Arena in London on 24 August 2013, along with Kamal Haasan and his sons Yuvan Shankar Raja and Karthik Raja.