illayaraja Print

Ilaiyaraaja (born Gnanathesikan; 2 June 1943) is an Indian film composer, singer, songwriter, instrumentalist, orchestrator, conductor-arranger and lyricist who works in the Indian Film Industry, predominantly in Tamil. Widely regarded as one of the greatest Indian music composers, he is credited for introducing western musical sensibilities in the Indian musical mainstream. Reputed to be the world's most prolific composer,[1] he has composed over 7000 songs, provided film scores for more than 1000 movies and performed in more than 20,000 concerts.[2][3][4][5] Being the first Asian to compose a full symphony with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London, Ilaiyaraaja is known to have written the entire symphony in less than a month.[6][7][8] He is also a gold medalist in classical guitar from Trinity College of Music, London, Distance Learning Channel.[9] In a poll conducted by CNN-IBN celebrating 100 years of Indian cinema in 2013, Ilaiyaraaja was voted as the all-time greatest film-music director of India.[10] US-based world cinema portal "Taste of Cinema" placed Ilaiyaraaja at the 9th position in its list of 25 greatest film composers in the history of cinema and he is the only Indian composer in that list.[11]