Happy Birthday to our dearest AR Rahman

Here are our heartful Birthday wishes to one of the greatest musician the world has ever seen – AR Rahman…

(source: Wikipedia)

Allah Rakkha Rahman (born January 6, 1966 as A. S. Dileep Kumar in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India) is a Golden Globe nominatedfilm composer, record producer and musician. His work has garnered considerable acclaim and a large global fanbase since his career scoring film began in the early 1990s.

Working in several of India’s various state/language film industries, international cinema and theatre, by 2003, Rahman, in a career spanning over a decade, has sold more than one hundred million records of his film scores and soundtracks worldwide, and sold over two hundred million cassettes making him one of the world’s top 10 all-time top selling recording artists.

His acclaimed music compositions have led TIME Magazine to declare him the “Mozart of Madras” and several Tamil commentators have given him the title Isai Puyal

He initially composed music jingles for advertisements, Indian Television channels and music scores in documentaries, among other projects. In 1992, he was approached by film director Mani Ratnam to compose the score and soundtrack for Ratnam’s Tamil film Roja. The debut led Rahman to receive the Rajat Kamal award for Best Music Director at the National Film Awards, the first time ever by a first-time film composer.

Rahman has been involved in several projects aside from film. He made an album Vande Mataram (1997) on India’s 50th anniversary of independence to commercial success. He followed it up with an album for the Bharat Bala–directed video Jana Gana Mana, a conglomeration of performances by many leading exponents/artists of Indian classical music. Rahman has written jingles for ads and composed several orchestrations for athletic events, T.V. and internet media publications, documentaries and short films.

In 1999, Rahman, along with choreographers Shobhana and Prabhu Deva Sundaram and a Tamil cinema dancing troupe performed with Michael Jackson in Munich, Germany, for his “Michael Jackson and Friends Concert.” In 2002, he composed his maiden stage production Bombay Dreams (2002) following a commission from musical theatre composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, a success in London‘s West End. With Finnish folk music band Värttinä, he wrote the music for The Lord of the Rings theatre production and in 2004, Rahman composed the piece “Raga’s Dance” for Vanessa-Mae‘s album Choreography.

In the last six years, Rahman has performed three successful world tours of his concerts to audiences in Singapore, Australia, Malaysia, Dubai, UK, Canada, the US (Hollywood Bowl and 3d tour) and India.^[8]He has been collaborating with Karen David for her upcoming studio album. A two-disc soundtrack, Introducing A. R. Rahman (2006) featuring 25 pieces he composed from his Tamil film scores was released in May 2006. His latest non-film album, Connections was launched on 12th December, 2008.

His first soundtrack Roja was listed in TIME’s “Top 10 Movie Soundtracks of All Time” in 2005. Film critic Richard Corliss felt the “astonishing debut work parades Rahman’s gift for alchemizing outside influences until they are totally Tamil, totally Rahman.” Rahman’s initial global reach is attributed to the South Asian diaspora. Described as one of the most innovative composers to ever work in the industry, his unique style and immense success transformed film music in the 1990s prompting several film producers to take film music more seriously.

A. R. Rahman is married to Saira Bano. The couple have three children, Khatija, Rahim, and Aman. Rahman is related to the South Indian actor Rashin Rahman. Rahman is the uncle of composer G. V. Prakash Kumar.

Rahman is involved in various charitable causes. In 2004, he was appointed as the Global Ambassador of the Stop TB Partnership, a project by WHO. He has shown support to charities including Save the Children, India, and worked with Cat Stevens / Yusuf Islam for his song “Indian Ocean” . The song featured a-ha keyboard player Magne Furuholmen and Travis drummer, Neil Primrose. The proceeds of the song went towards helping orphans in Banda Aceh, one of the areas worst affected by the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. He also supports charities such as Save the Children and has also produced the single “We Can Make It Better” by Don Asian alongside Mukhtar Sahota. In 2008, Rahman opened his KM Music Conservatory partnered with Audio Media Education facility to tutor and train aspiring musicians in vocals, instruments, music technology and sound design. The conservatory — with preeminent musicians on its panel and a newly founded symphony orchestra — is located near his studio in Kodambakkam,Chennai, offering courses at Beginners, Foundation and Diploma level.