Ragas and symphonies: Indian maestro Ilaiyaraaja is still reshaping music 50 years on

Key developments are emerging from the global stage. Ragas and symphonies: Indian maestro Ilaiyaraaja is still reshaping music 50 years on8 hours ago Share Save Add as preferred on GoogleAnbarasan EthirajanGlobal affairs correspondentAnanda VikatanIlaiyaraaja has scored music for more than 1,000 films across nine languagesHis ardent fans call him "the Maestro". Five decades after his debut, Ilaiyaraaja's music still echoes through homes, concert halls and cinema screens across India. The 83-year-old composer from Tamil Nadu has scored more than 1,000 films in nine languages, a record unmatched in Indian cinema.

He transformed the sound of Tamil film music with Annakili in 1976 and has gone on to become one of India's most influential composers. "Ilaiyaraaja's arrival was a watershed moment. It was an intervention by a person from an entirely different social and aesthetic background who had imbued a distinct aural soundscape," says TM Krishna, a celebrated Carnatic musician.

The Details

In India, playback singing is central to popular cinema: singers record songs that actors lip-sync on screen, while the composers usually also create the film's background score. Before Ilaiyaraaja, a lot of film music was rooted in Indian classical music. Western symphonic influences were rarely woven into the mainstream soundtrack.

But Ilaiyaraaja, Krishna says, drew on a wide range of musical traditions from around the world. "What's unique is that he creates a cohesiveness to all the different forms he's taken from different genres of music. That is the genius of Ilaiyaraja," he said.

Following the success of Annakili, Ilaiyaraaja produced hits across languages, including Pathinaaru Vayathinile, Olangal, Sadma, Geetanjali, Chinna Gounder and Nayakan. He has composed more than 8,000 film songs, drawing heavily on Tamil Nadu's folk and rural ballad traditions. Last year, he became the first Indian to compose and perform a Western classical symphony in London with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, which described it as a "milestone in global music history".

What Experts Say

Stills RaviIlaiyaraaja started studying Western music after he moved to Chennai in search of workBorn in June 1943 in Pannaipuram, Tamil Nadu, as R Gnanathesikan, Ilaiyaraaja was raised on the folk songs and ballads sung by his father, a cardamom estate supervisor. He was seven when his father died suddenly. "My mother Chinnathayammal bore the entire burden of the household after that.

We went through a difficult period," Gangai Amaran, Ilaiyaraaja's younger brother and a celebrated music director himself, told the . Born into a poor, socially marginalised family, Ilaiyaraaja had few opportunities to get ahead. But music was all around him.

His eldest brother, singer-playwright Paavalar Varadharajan, performed at Communist Party events in the 1950s, when the party wielded significant influence in the region. "We travelled from village to village with our elder brother. That's how we learnt folk and rural musical traditions," Amaran said.

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