Maestro ilaiyaraaja news & titbits

[kameshratnam]

We around 20 people had a meeting in chennai. We had invited Mr. Prabhakar and Mr. Jaya Manickam - both violin players with IR. They shared their experiences here

The note is written by Ra Muruganandam. The meet was initiated and organised by Akbar basha and photos are by Dhinakar rajaram

Really it was a very good meeting of Ilayaraaja Fans on 18th after a long gap Eventhough we had only a few no of people present, still we enjoyed the meeting and it was pleasant, peaceful and informative with the presence of Sr. Violinists Mr. Prabhakar & Mr. Jayamanickam. Hope the VIPs also enjoyed being with us.

Akbar asked me to make the welcome note where I couldn't speak. Dr. Nanda and Bala sir were requested to honour the VIPs with small mementos and shawls. I am not aware of what Jayamanickam sir discussed before Prabhakar sir joined the meeting. Prabhakar sir shared with us a lot of information which were exciting and mostly unknown.

To remember, some of them which Prabhakar sir narrated were:

i) Since more than the past 30 years, he has been associated with Ilayaraaja for playing violin, conducting recordings, rehearsals, writing notes, performing for live events, with his non filmi albums, etc, and his journey continues until now.

ii) Currently he has completed writing notes (by only listening it through headphone) for How to Name it? to perform live by the last week of April. The same was the situation for the previous live performance of Nothing But Wind. Due to the non-availability of the notes of the both albums, Prabhakar has to listen and write. The sad part is even Raaja does not have the original notes for the albums and most of all of his compositions.

iii) Dalapathy recording sessions at Bombay - Particularly, during the recording of the song 'Sundari Kannal Oru Sethi', the Navy Music Troupe were called to perform for the score of the song. And all the musicians were spell bound and kept silent for atleast 15 minutes after the recording. Then all of them standed up, clapped their hands being excited of the score.

iv) The situation during Sri Rama Rajyam composing session: Prabhakar sir was asked to copy by writing the notations while Ilayaraaja was writing and that Prabhakar sir was confused of Raaja's writing from bottom to top style and was not able to cope up with the writing speed of Ilayaraaja. And boldly when asked to Raaja, how he could write notes this much fast, he just smiled.

v) In a normal score sheet or it could be a big size symphony score sheet, Raaja would write clearly without any mistake the notes for all the instruments, which when composed is a new born fine music.

vi) The maximum no of films Raaja has done in a year was 52. In average, 1 film per week basis. And since then and until now, he had never seen Raaja taking rest or sleeping in his room at Prasad Studio. Anytime u enter his room, he will be doing something, writing, or composing, or writing some notations whereas the musicians including Prabhakar sir would take rest or sleep during the rest or lunch time.

vii) Raaja, even when he was very busy with lot of films, he would prefectly remember the sequence of each and every film during the recording sessions and would recall the left part or portion the next day or the noon etc as he would do recordings for films alternatively. i.e. a film in the morning and one in the afternoon. Again one the next day morning and again the previous days film in the afternoon like.

viii) There is no person in India (hopefully in Asia & the World) to write music, compose, extract work from the musicians, score, conduct and play music etc., none other than the one and only Ilayaraaja.

ix) For the film Avatar, the MD of the film Mr.James Horner took 6 months to compose music for the film (actually it was 1 year - James Horner was asked to be with the director for 6 months during the film shooting before he started to composing music). Whereas Ilayaraaja would not require any of these and he would perfectly score music for the film in just not more than 10 continuous days. Amazing!!!

x) Prabhakar was asked to conduct score for the film Ramana (Vijayakant's which was a hit number) for one week. And he was really surprised to conduct a wonderful score for the film.

xi) While Prabhakar was taken to perform Live in Italy, he was not aware that Raaja has composed a music with only 3 notes (he thought that it could be a normal note and not only with 3 notes). While he was on the stage to perform live and given the real notes, he was surprised to see the notes in only '3 notes'. And Raaja has also composed in 2 notes which is 'Vaa vaa pakkam vaa' as told by Ilayaraaja in Endrendrum Raaja.

xii) Raaja has learned and knows very well Carnatic & Western Music very well that he could again compose music in Western suiting for the same film Sindhu Bairavi.

xiii) Raaja went to Gujarat before 4 or 5 years where he visited the Akshardham temple at Ahmedabad, and was asked to compose music for a short film of the temple by a foreigner. He composed 3 times for the same film - for 3 days, each unique. And finally one was selected but all the three were perfectly matching which Prabhakar saw live and was really amazed.

xiv) Finally, how Prabhakar got associated with Raaja - remembered the days when they were playing as a group in the name of Pavalar brothers. And how SPB got associated with them - SPB was singing in telugu film industry and got entry to tamil through 'Ayiram Nilavae Vaa' and 'Iyerkai Ennum Ilaya Kanni'. Then he came to know about the Pavalar brothers and he joined with them and together they started conducting orchestras here and there. And after that Ilayaraaja's career started as a Music Director from 'Annakkili'. Actually there was a film done by Raaja before Annakkili which was not released. So Annakkili became the first.

And the time was almost near 2.00 PM and both Prabhakar & Jayamanickam were with us for around 2 hours and had to leave. Prabhakar sir thanked a lot for inviting him and felt very happy. He was shocked when he came to know the non-availability of new (and also old) CDs of Raaja. He said will try to help the situation by conveying the message to Bavatharini. We requested him if we can help Bhavatharini & team in organizing HTNI live event in any way.

A representative of Agi Music, Mr. Thirunavukkarasu, was also present in the meeting with some CDs from Agi Music, which some of the members bought some CDs.

Friends, pls add the ones which I could not remember and missed out.

Thanks to:
All the members for making the meeting a success.
Eddie Dinesh for arranging a nice venue.
Dhinakar Rajaram for nice photo coverage:
https://plus.google.com/photos/11691...321?banner=pwa