Ilaiyaraaja

Born in 1943 in Pannaipuram, Tamil Nadu, Ilaiyaraaja was shaped early on by the popular music of South India and by the travelling troupe Pavalar Brothers before working in Chennai as a musician, arranger and assistant to composers such as G. K. Venkatesh and Salil Chowdhury. Ilaiyaraaja’s film breakthrough came with Annakili in 1976, marking the start of a prolific output for Tamil cinema as well as for Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada and Hindi films. His writing rests on a precise fusion of Tamil folk, the Carnatic tradition and harmonies drawn from Western classical music, with a distinctive taste for counter-melodies, strings and orchestral architectures, sometimes infused with rock, jazz or film pop. Outside cinema, he released the instrumental albums How to Name It? (1986) and Nothing But Wind (1988), and later composed Thiruvasagam in Symphony (2006), presented as an oratorio. Trained in Western classical music and holding a diploma in classical guitar from the Trinity College of Music, London, Ilaiyaraaja also continues to work as a conductor and as a composer for the stage.