The famous Indian film composer, singer, songwriter, lyricist, orchestrator, and instrumentalist who predominates the Tamil industry and works in the Indian Film Industry needs no introduction. Gnanathesikan or popularly known as Ilayaraja was born on the 2nd of June 1943 in a Dalit family belonging to the Theni District, Tamil Nadu. Growing up in a rural area, he was exposed to the local Tamil folk music. Being brought up around tunes and rhythms piqued his eternal interest in music
Ilaiyaraaja had learnt musical instruments from Dhanraj Master in 1968. He was the student of Dhanraj Master, who used to call him Raaja. Ilaiyaraaja had completed the musical course of Degree in Western Art Music. He had learnt the classical guitar via the distance learning channel from the Trinity College of Music in London and was a gold medalist in the classical guitar. He got the guidance for music composition from G.K.Venkatesh.
Ilaiyaraaja married Jeeva. His three children are Karthik Raja, Yuvan Shankar Raaja and Bhavatharini. His siblings were Pavalar Varadarajan, Gangai Amaran, Padmavathi Rajayya, Daniel Bhaskar and Kamalammal Rajayya.
At the age of 14, he joined his older brother, Pavalar Varadarajan’s musical
troupe named “ Pavalar Brothers” and went on to tour and travel with them around South India
performing and playing music. During the tour, he penned his first-ever composition.
Fun fact here, did you know that Ilayaraja is one of the only few composers
who write their music notes first before singing them. An immensely difficult feat.
After that in 1968, he joined Dhanraj Master, as a student to learn musical instruments.
Dhanraj master later named him “Raaja” . Ilayaraja is also a Gold Medalist in Classical
Guitar after completing a distance learning course from none other than Trinity College
Of Music, London. He also learned Carnatic music from T.V Gopalakrishnan.
After working for some time as a composer, Ilayaraja got hired by Kannada Film Composer G.K Venkatesh as a musical assistant. He worked on over 200 film projects with him. By 1975, Ilayaraja got commissioned to compose for his first-ever movie “Annakili”, a Tamil production. For the soundtrack of the movie, Ilayaraja created a fusion of Western Popular Music and Tamil Folk Music. His techniques grew in popularity, influencing a new wave of fusion music culture and a massive appreciation for Tamil Folk Music. His popularity kept on growing more and more as he worked. He has worked with some of the greatest lyricists and musicians of all time, some of them being Sitaramasastri, Chi. Udaya Shankar and Gulzar, Singeetam Srinivasa Rao, Bala, Shankar Nag, and R. Balk being some of them.
