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 Known
as 'Isaignani'(all-knowing musician) or 'Ragadevan' (God of
Raagas) and many more titles, Illayaraja has scored music
for nearly 700 films and composed more than 3500 film
songs.
Illayaraja is a music director who works at everything.
From composing to orchestration to conducting. He also does
recording and balancing of tracks.
Entering the Tamil film industry in 1976, his music for the
film Annakkili became a runaway hit. He can conceive and
write out the entire orchestration for a song, without
having to play out each part. He has scored music for
Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Hindi and one English
film.
During his on-stage Carnatic vocal performance, he sang his
own 'Kirthanas'(Songs in Carnatic music). He created the
Raaga "Panchamukhi" explaining the five facets of music
that included the colourful aspect of film music. Usually a
song requires a minimum of five notes (swaras). He is the
only music director to compose a song in just three notes.
He won the Indian National Film Music Award for his scores
in the films Sagara Sangamam (1985), Sindhu Bhairavi (1987)
and Rudhra Veena (1989). He is also the recipient of the
prestigious Lata Mangeshkar award for the year 1998.
His first fusion music album 'How To Name It?' set a new
trend in non-film-based music album making. This was
followed by Nothing but the Wind and recently - India 24
hours.
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