Ilaiyaraaja marks 50 years in film, calls for Bharat Ratna grow

Ilaiyaraaja’s half-century in cinema has become a national argument about stature, not nostalgia. The composer, who began with Annakili in 1976, was honoured in Chennai for 50 years in film as Chief Minister M.K. Stalin publicly urged the Government of India to award him the Bharat Ratna.

The numbers behind that case are difficult to ignore. Over nearly five decades, Ilaiyaraaja has composed music for more than 1,500 films and written more than 8,000 songs. He has won five National Film Awards, including three for Best Music Direction and two for Best Background Score, and has received both the Padma Bhushan and the Padma Vibhushan. Admirers call him Isaignani, a title that captures the scale of his place in Indian music.

His career has also crossed into symphonic territory in ways few film composers have managed. In June 1993, he became the first Asian to have a symphonic work performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London, and the orchestra later gave him the title maestro. In March 2025, he presented Valiant, his first Western classical symphony, in London with the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra at the Eventim Apollo Theatre, a performance described as a first for an Asian film composer.

The Chennai felicitation on September 13, 2025, made that global reach visible at home. Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan attended the event, where the London Philharmonic Orchestra performed Valiant Symphony I along with Ilaiyaraaja numbers including Kanne Kalaimane. Rajinikanth also recalled memories from their early cinema days, while the evening underscored how deeply Ilaiyaraaja’s work has travelled beyond the screen.

That reach has come alongside a long-running fight over music rights and royalties, with Ilaiyaraaja publicly and legally challenging labels and other rights holders over payment for his work. The dispute has kept attention on a larger question that extends beyond one composer: who profits from the soundtrack of modern Indian cinema. Half a century after Annakili, Ilaiyaraaja remains central to that debate, as a composer whose influence is still being measured in courts, concert halls and the songs that continue to define popular memory.