Music maestro Ilayaraaja enthralled music lovers with his first ever concert “Raaja-The One Man.” The musician, 74, who performed with an 85-member symphony orchestra from Hungary and noted musicians from India, had a packed house with over 4,000 people in the audience.
“I am very grateful and honoured to have the opportunity to entertain fans for the first time in Houston, I will be singing songs of the ’70s to the current ones,” he said. “I am the only composer in the world to have composed a song only in the ascending notes,” he added. The critically acclaimed film composer, singer, and lyricist and the first Asian composer to score a Symphony, is credited with setting a trend for film music in South India by fusing western musical nuances into songs. Apart from Tamil, he has also worked in Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada and Hindi films as a music director.
Raja was accompanied by noted south Indian singers KS Chitra, Mano, Haricharan, Rahul Nambiar, Sharath, Santosh and other Bollywood singers and mesmerising members of Budapest symphony orchestra. “We cannot thank enough Rajender Singh of Star Promotions, who has been bringing Bollywood shows nonstop for years, for bringing the legend finally to Houston and watching him live has been dream come true,” an excited fan Annapoorani Roopa Balakrishnan said.
“Blessed and Privileged to witness Padmavibushan Thiru Ilayaraja live in Houston”, said another fan Yogeshwar Thyagaraja. KS Chithra — Nightingale of Kerala — charmed the audience with Ninnu Kori Varnam. As Mano started, the audience was engulfed in a wave of nostalgia, cheered aloud for the bygone era.
In a career spanning over four decades, Ilayarajaa has scored music for over 1,000 feature films. Altogether, 6,500 to 7,000 songs have been composed by him so far. He bagged five National Awards.
