Ilaiyaraaja: Project “Then, Now & Forever” 2013
Western classical music is perspective – look at the number of people involved in a symphony! Our traditional music is lonely – Ilaiyaraaja
A very young Ilaiyaraaja with the very talented SP Bala and S. Janaki in the early 1980s during a recording session. Image source: The Federal
As long I could remember, I have been listening to Ilaiyaraaja music since I was still young and started to have an appreciation of his style of music – all the way from the 1970s (you are aware that Annakili was not his first movie and that he had to impress the producer Panchu Arunachalam by singing a song that his mother sang and using the table as a music instrument?) to his latest flick in “Neethane En Ponvasantham” – thanks to my Dad who was a big fan of Ilaiyaraaja (Ilaiyaraaja means the “younger” Raja – that is because the Tamil music industry already had another music director named Raja – the famed A.M. Raja).