Karthikeya Murthy

Karthikeya Murthy
Background information
Also known as Karthik Iyer, KM
Born 16 May 1985
Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
Genres Film score, World Fusion
Occupation(s) Music Composer, Singer, Songwriter, Arranger, Conductor, Pianist
Instruments Piano, Keyboard, Melodica, Vocals, Harmonium
Years active 2014–present

Karthikeya Murthy is an Indian composer, singer-songwriter and music producer. He made his debut in Tamil/Telugu bilingual movie Moone Moonu Varthai/Moodu Mukkallo Cheppalante (2015).[1]

Personal life

Karthikeya was trained in Carnatic Classical Music by Chengalpet Ranganathan, DKJ.Sukanya, Premalatha and in Western Classical music by Abdul Sattar. Karthikeya is the grandson of ace mridangam player T.K.Murthy. His father T.K.Jayaraman was a music composer at All India Radio, Chennai. He is the 7th generation musician in his family with his musical roots tracing to Bowdeeshwara Bagavathar (Carnatic Singer), Thanu Bhagavathar (Carnatic Singer), Subramaniya Bhagavathar (Carnatic Singer), Thanu Subramaniya Bhagavathar (Violinist), Dr.T.K.Murthy (mridangam) and T.K.Jayaraman (Music Composer). His early ancestors were court musicians. [2][3]

Career

He began his career in music by forming a band in school known as Pro-teens which was later renamed to Madras Tunes for a band hunt competition in Sun TV. He then ventured into short films, ad films, documentarties as an independent composer before getting into films. As a part of Madras Tunes he won the band hunt show "Oh La La La" conducted by renowned music director A.R.Rahman and music label Saregama. Post winning and recording an album in Rahman's studio, he went on to write music along with his friend Giridharan for ace director K.Balachander's last stage show "Oru Koodai Paasam" under the stage name "Karthik Iyer". The music of the show was well appreciated with Hindu reviewing the music as "lilting and one of the good production values". He further did more theater works including the one for Dancer Dhananjayans and Olliyum Oliyum production's INSTINCT. Also he worked on several short films including the critically acclaimed Thuvandha Yuddham, Jagathinai Azhithidivom to name a few.[4][5][6][7][8]

Acclaimed producer/singer/actor S.P.Charan met Karthikeya while recording a song for a college project that led him to rope Karthikeya as a composer in his production Moone Moonu Varthai directed by Madhumita - a bilingual (in Telugu Moodu Mukkallo Cheppalante). At the single launch show of the Moone Moonu Varthai, veteran singer S. P. Balasubrahmanyam for the very first time performed a song from the movie with Karthikeya on Piano during which he compared his music-composing prowess to that of Oscar-winning music director A.R.Rahman.[9]

Filmography

Year Movie Language Notes
2015 Moone Moonu Varthai Tamil
Moodu Mukkallo Cheppalante Telugu

[10][11][12]

External links

References