Vidyasagar Music Director

Vidyasagar was born to a family of musicians. His father U. Ramachander was a musician who could play eight instruments and his grandfather Varaha Narasimha Murthy was the court 'Vidhwan' for the king of Vijayanagaram Bobili. Vidyasagar started learning vocal classical music and harmonium from his father at the age of four. When he was eight-years-old Vidyasagar joined Dhanraj Master. In fact both A. R. Rahman and Vidyasagar had joined on the same day. Vidyasagar learnt guitar for 3-4 years there, then the piano. Vidyasagar studied Western classical music at the Trinity College of Music, London.

At a tender age of eleven, the child prodigy in Vidyasagar knew how to play a dozen musical instruments and signed up to work as a regular musician for many music directors. Vidyasagar could play for all languages because then, most films had their recording at Chennai. Vidyasagar wanted to then compose his own tunes and have someone else play them. He had assisted various music directors and even done ghost music for some of them. So he had the experience and wanted to compose independently.

Vidyasagar - 1989 to 1996

Vidyasagar became an independent music director with the song "En Anbe" in the 1989 Tamil movie 'Poomanam' directed by Rajasekhar (Robert). Though Vidyasagar started his music career with a Tamil film, recognition in Tamil music industry came to him much later. He shifted base to Telugu and from 1993 to 1996, Vidyasagar became the top music director in Telugu.

In 1994-95, Vidyasagar was picked up by Tamil actor-director Arjun, with whom he worked for many musically acclaimed films like 'Jai Hind', 'Karna', 'Subash' and 'Sengothai' though the movies themselves didn't do well. Vidyasagar composed some of his best music for Arjun's films with some intensely melodic numbers like 'Malare', 'Bhoomiae', and 'Padu Padu' some of which went totally unnoticed. After a not so impressive start in Tamil film industry Vidyasagar was discovered by Malayalam film industry.

Vidyasagar - 1996 to 2001

From 1996 to 2001 Vidyasagar mainly concentrated on Malayalam films where he became the top music director. In Malayalam right from his first film "Azhagiya Ravanan" to "Meesa Madhavan" he struck the right cord. He has created scores in which ragas and rhythms combined to a good melody, which even bagged him four Kerala State Awards. Vidyasagar's love for melody has made him turn to Malayalam film industry time and again, and the songs in hit films like Azhagiya Ravanan, Meesa Madhavan, Gramaphone, CID Moosa and Kilichundan Mambazham were all super hits.

During this period, Vidyasagar's song compositions in Tamil movies like 1998 Vijay starrer "Nilaave Vaa" and "Uyirodu Uyiraaga" starring Ajith did catch attention and became quite popular but still the bad patch in Tamil films continued for Vidyasagar during this period. Vidyasagar was probably the only composer in South India who has delivered many super hit songs during his early days but was not considered a success. Even today, some of Vidyasagar's prior songs composed for movies are sung by music troupes. But the total success of the film counts ultimately because the music director will be identified with the film.

Vidyasagar - 2001 to Now

After a successful Malayalam career he made a come back into Tamil with "Dhill" and "Povellam Un Vasam". Songs in both of these films were instant hits. Then came "Dhool" which opened new doors in Tamil songs with highly successful folk song 'Ithanadu Kara Kodumae', and great melody in 'Asai Asai'. With "Dhool" and "Dhill" under his belt, Vidyasagar was the talk of the town, for which he had to wait for 13 years. With a successful come back he then went on to give music to some of most successful films of the year 2002-2003 like "Anbae Sivam" and Madhavan's "Run" which was a huge musical hit as well as commercial hit. The music composed by Vidyasagar for movies released in 2003 "Iyarkai", "Thithukudhe", "Parthiban Kanavu" and Vijay's "Thirumalai" were highly popular in spite of the fact that some of these movies failed at the box office.

The year 2004 saw Vidyasagar come up with "Gillie" which was an instant hit with song 'Appadi podu podu' ruling the charts in Tamil music world. This was followed by other hits like "Madurey", "London" and "Ji" in 2004-05. In the year 2005 Vidyasagar received national award for the Telugu movie 'Swarabhishkam' by K. Vishwanath featuring carnatic classical music. Vidyasagar continued his success spree by composing music for Rajni starrer 'Chandaramukhi', which was the biggest hit of the year 2005 and a comeback movie for Rajnikanth. The audio of the movie was a best seller and the BGM (Back Ground Music) of the film was also released for the first time in the Indian music industry. Vidyasagar also became the first South Indian music composer to score music for a Hollywood film. He has composed music for the Hollywood movie "Beyond the Soul" directed by Rajeev Anchal. The year 2004-05 also saw him score music for the Hindi movie "Hulchul" from Priyadarshan.

As they say, nothing succeeds like success and Vidyasagar is now a well known figure in the Tamil film music, sometimes for wrong reasons due to his hugely popular fast and peppy numbers composed for movies starring Tamil super stars Vijay and Vikram. Poor imitation by others has only made things worse for the Tamil music world and one can only wait for things to fizzle out eventually when people realize the madness and become tired of it all. As said by Vidyasagar about recognition for such music, "When success eludes you, nobody is bothered about you, what you know and what you could do. That is why mediocrity succeeds. If you are successful, nobody questions your knowledge."

Vidyasagar is currently working for films by Vikram, Ajit, and Balachander and strives to deliver his best that he never shrunk from. While other music directors continue to gain advantage many times due to the hype surrounding them, Vidyasagar continues to work as humble ever-smiling musician who is content to compose on his little harmonium, churning out many deceptively simple and melodious numbers.