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Ilayaraaja was born in a poor rural family in Pannaiapuram near Madurai, Tamil Nadu. Although he did not have any formal education, he completed a course in classical guitar (higher local) with a gold medal at the Trinity College of Music in London.

Ilayaraaja has composed for more than 750 films. His first movie, Annakilli, was instrumental in bringing about a fusion of Tamil folk music and Tamil film music.

He won the national Best Film Music Composer award three times for Saagara Sangamam ( 1984), Sindhu Bhairavi ( 1986) and Rudra Veena ( 1988). He is the first Asian to compose a full symphonyA symphony is an extended piece of music for orchestra, especially one in the form of a sonata. The word "symphony" The word symphony is derived from the Greek syn (together) and phone (sounding), by way of the latin symphonia''. The term was used by the for the Royal Philharmonic OrchestraThe Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO) is an English orchestra based in London. It tours widely, and is sometimes called "Britain's national orchestra". The RPO was founded in 1946 by Thomas Beecham and played its first concert in Croydon on September 15, (RPO). His music is mainly associated with the 80's, the decade during which he was most prolific.

Besides scoring music for TamilKollywood is a name often applied to Tamil Cinema, based in Chennai (formerly Madras) in the state of Tamil Nadu in south India. The name is a conflation of Kodambakkam and Hollywood''. Kodambakkam is an area in Chennai, in and around which there is a hig and other Indian films, Ilayaraaja has written two fusion albums, blending western classical with CarnaticPurandara Dasa—the Great Father pitamaha of Carnatic music Muthuswami Dikshitar, Thyagaraja and Syama Sastri—the trinity of Carnatic music Carnatic music or Karnatak music (Sanskrit is the classical music of South India, as opposed to the classical music raagas. The first, How To Name It?, was dedicated to Carnatic composer TyagarajaSri Tyagaraja (17? 1848), an ardent devotee of Sri Ramachandra, was one of the principal composers of Carnatic music, and is also regarded as the most important of the trinity of composers. Born in a Telugu Vaidika Brahmin family, Tyagaraja lived in Thiru and Johann Sebastian BachJohann Sebastian Bach ( March 21, 1685 July 28, 1750) was a German composer and organist of the Baroque period, and is almost universally regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time. His works, noted for their intellectual depth, technical comma. The title of the second, Nothing But Wind, suggests that music is a natural phenomenon akin to wind.

While he has developed associations with Carnatic musicians like Mangalampalli BalaMuraliKrishna and T.V. Gopalakrishnan , he has also come in for some flak from conservative Carnatic music fans for retuning some of Tyagaraja's compositions.

In 2002, his compostion "Rakkama Kaiya Thattu" from the movie Dhalapathi stayed at the top of a BBC list of the best songs for quite a while, before finishing at 4th place. Poll Home

He was the music composer for the Miss World 1996 Pageantry, held in Bangalore. His latest hits are Pithamagan (2003 Tamil movie) and Virumandi (2004 Tamil movie).

He is currently working on a symphonic project about Thiruvasakam .