Born on June 2, 1943, in Pannaipuram village, Tamil Nadu, Ilaiyaraaja grew up in a small village household as a child and would become a great composer of Indian film music.
Also known as “Isaignani” and loved by many millions of people all over the world, Ilaiyaraaja’s classic melodies are played on playlists, trending on YouTube and front-and-centre in Google searches across all generations of the world after he first joined up with the music hall.
Ilaiyaraaja grew up in a country household of poverty, but loved folk music as a child. He worked in his brother’s music band and served in the villages as a boy. In a world of money woes, he had a passion for music. He then moved to Chennai to study Western classical music, where he studied composition at Trinity College of Music in London.
Ilaiyaraaja started his career in 1976 with a fantastic Tamil film, Annakili. And the performances were so huge in the South Indian film genre that audiences went wild for a combination of folk music and classical music, and Western orchestration he hadn't heard of. Ilaiyaraaja composed for over a thousand movies and 7,000 songs in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada and Hindi cinema over the years, leading to over 1,000 performances in those languages.
His most famous hits, Nayakan, Mouna Ragam, Thalapathi, Geethanjali and Paa made him a legend in Indian literature. He was a genius in popular Indian entertainment circles. He made it, and yet, despite his success, he was not free from pain: he was no exception.
And so it was, and so, too often, those things were more mundane (industry players and directors, musical palettes and an artistic dispute with directors, etc.). But Ilaiyaraaja was always refracting himself, turning over and over and reshaping himself as an artist. His private life has been a rather private affair. He married Jeeva and is a family man in his life.
His two sons, one son composer Yuvan Shankar Raja, have also inherited the musical legacy. Outside of the film world, Ilaiyaraaja had concerts, symphonies, devotional albums and international music collaborations. He was the first Asian composer to compose a full symphony with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London.
But Ilaiyaraaja plays, sings live in concerts and inspires a whole generation of young musicians worldwide. There will be collaboration on future world music and spirituality musical projects. But right now, Ilaiyaraaja is more than a composer; he is the heart and soul of Indian music. We desire so much more than a choir of village folk songs for the symphonies of the world, in which millions will be heard for eternity and forever.
