When he joined the school his father changed his name as "Rajaiya" but his village people used to call him as "Raasayya". Ilaiyaraaja was born as Gnanathesikan in 1943 in a normal middle-class family in Pannaipuram, Theni district, Tamil Nadu, India. In a poll conducted by CNN-IBN celebrating 100 years of Indian cinema in 2013, Ilaiyaraaja was voted as the greatest music composer of India with a maximum of 49%. On December 31, 2015, he was nominated by the Kerala Government for Nishagandi Puraskaram, the top award conferred by the Kerala Government's Tourism Ministry, for his artistic excellence and contributions to the Indian film industry. In 2015, he was also honoured with the Centenary Award for lifetime achievement at the 46th International Film Festival of India (IFFI) at Panaji, Goa. In 2003, according to an international poll conducted by BBC, more than half-a million people from 165 countries voted his composition Rakkamma Kaiya Thattu from the 1991 film Thalapathi as fourth in the world's top 10 most popular songs of all time. Ilaiyaraja is a gold medalist in classical guitar from Trinity College of Music, London. He is usually referred to by the title Isaignani (English: Musical Genius), or as The Maestro. In 2010 he has received Padma Bhushan, awarded by the Government of India. He has won five Indian National Film Awards (the highest film honor in India) three for Best Music Direction and two for Best Background Score.
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He is also the first Asian to compose a full symphony performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Ilayaraaja introduced Western type of music into the Tamil cinema.He is also known for creating music by fusing symphonic orchestration with traditional Indian instrumentation.In 1993 he organised a full symphony performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London and thus became the First Indian to compose a full symphony, with Ravi Shankar being the only other Indian to do so.
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He has composed more than 6000 songs and provided film music or movie soundtrack for more than 1000 films, particularly being famous for his background music. Ilaiyaraaja is also an instrumentalist, conductor, singer, and songwriter.
I am always grateful for your love and affection,” he wrote on his Facebook post.Ilayaraaja is a famous film composer and singer in South Indian cinema especially in Tamil cinema. Hope you all will bless our concerts as usual. But the show should happen.By God's grace I have sung lots of other composer's songs too which we will present. In these circumstances, our troupe cannot perform Isaijnani's compositions from today.
As I said earlier, I am ignorant of the law. I dont know why now when we started our US tour. “My Son designed this world tour and we kickstarted this SPB50 conncert tour in August in Toronto, then we performed in Russia, Srilanka, Malaysia, Singapore, Dubai and did lots of shows in India too. Soon, the singer put up a statement that he would complete the rest of his tour without Ilaiyaraaja’s songs. The issue broke when Ilaiyaraaja slapped a legal notice on SPB who was in the middle of his SPB50’s US leg of the concert tour. The live concert also has singers Mano, Bombay Jayashri and Usha Uthup in the line-up of artistes. It was earlier announced that the concert will see the reunion of Ilaiyaraaja, SPB and Yesudas after a very long time.