Vanraj Bhatia
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| Vanraj Bhatia | |
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| Born | 1927 Bombay, Maharashtra |
Vanraj Bhatia is an Indian music composer, who is most known for giving music for most of Shyam Benegal films and his private albums with Music Today.
During the 70s and 80s he worked with most of art film makers in India. He won the National Film Award for Best Music Direction for Tamas in 1988. He was awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1989.
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Early life and education
Born in 1927 in Bombay, Vanraj Bhatia trained in Western classical music while studying at the Elphinstone College in Mumbai, for M.A. (English Honours); after graduating in 1949, he left for Royal Academy of Music, London, to study music compositions, which he passed with a Royal Academy’s Gold Medal in 1954.
Thereafter he entered the Paris Conservatory where he studied with Nadia Boulanger and Howard Ferguson, between 1954 and 1959. All through his studies abroad, he received various scholarships starting with, Sir Michael Costa Scholarship (1951-4), Rockefeller Scholarship (1954-8), and French Government Scholarship (1957-8) [1].
[edit] Career
In 1960, he started his career as Reader in Musicology, in charge of Western Music, Faculty of Music, Delhi University, where he stayed for till 1965.
Meanwhile in 1959 he created his first advertising jingle for Shakti Silk Sarees, there was turning back from then on, he went on to become one of the pioneering ad jingle makers in India and also its most successful, and later shifted to Mumbai and starting working for the advertising industry. In all he created over 7000 scores for advertising jingles, corporate and business films.
His first film as music composer was Ankur (1974), soon he became a regular with Shyam Benegal and other art film makers of the time. His most noted works in this period are, Manthan (1976), Bhumika(1977), Junoon (1978), 36 Chowringhee Lane (1981) and Mandi (1983).
He also gave music for Indian theatre productions such as “Tughlak” and “Andha Yug” [2]
In the following decade his work was seen consistently [3] on Indian television with the title scores for TV series like, Khandaan, Yatra, Lifeline, Discovery Of India, Wagle Ki Duniya, it was for film made for Television, Tamas (1987) that he received the National Film Award for Best Music Direction in 1988.
In the 90s, he work in many commercial Hindi films as well as gave background scores for many others film, in all doing over 40 films in his career. Though he most noted work has been in the film Sardari Begum in 1996.
[edit] Non-film albums
- Sangit Raat (Night Music)
- The Elements - EARTH (1999)
- Indian Meditation Music (1999)
- Anant - The Endless (2001)
- The Bhagavad Gita (2002)
- The Spirit of Upanishads (2007)
[edit] Awards & recognition
- Bengal Film Journalists Association Award for Music: Bhumika (1976), Manthan (1977)
- Sur Singar Samsad Awards: Best Classical Score /Song: 1986, 1987
- National Film Award for Best Music Direction: Tamas: 1988
- Sangeet Natak Akademi Award: 1989 [4]
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Vanraj Bhatia at the Internet Movie Database
- Private albums of Vanraj Bhatia
- Vanraj Bhatia filmography at NY Times
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