Karthik Raja
Background information
Born	(1973-06-29)29 June 1973 (age 51)
Origin	Tamil Nadu,India
Occupations	Composer Playback singer
Years active	1992–present

Karthik Raja (born 29 June 1973) is an Indian composer and playback singer based in Chennai. He made his debut as a film composer in the tamil filmPandiyan (1992) and went on to score music for many critically and commercially acclaimed feature films.^[1][2][3]

Karthik Raja is the eldest son of music composerIllayaraja. His brotherYuvan Shankar Raja and sisterBhavatharini, alsoTamil film music directors and playback singers, have worked with him on notable projects. He was schooled atSt. Bede's School and Boston Matriculation higher secondary school in Chennai. On 8 June 2000, Karthik Raja married Raja Rajeshwari atTirupati, Andhra Pradesh, India.

Born to a family of musicians, Raja had exposure to various kinds of music from a very early age. He had his formal training in Western classical music from the Trinity School of Music, mainly in piano (affiliated with Jacob John). He also had training in Carnatic music fromT. V. Gopalakrishnan andMalayalam composer,V. Dakshinamoorthy.^[4]

As a child, Raja often used to accompany his father to the recording studios. At the age of 13, Karthik Raja played the keyboard for the songKannukkum from the Tamil movieNinaikka Therinda Maname (1987). Many such outings followed including playing keyboard for the soundtrack of the movieNayakan. Karthik also arranged many recordings for his father and composed his first song "Pandianin Rajiyathil" for the moviePandiyan (1992) and "Ninaikindra" for the movieAthma (1993). Around this time, he also composed some background scores for the TV seriesBible.

Raja debuted as a fully-fledged composer in 1996 through the Tamil movieAlexander, soon followed byManikkam. Then came many chart-busters that includedUllaasam,Naam Iruvar Nammaku Iruvar,Kadhala Kadhala andDumm Dumm Dumm among others. He also debuted in Hindi films withGrahan which won him theR.D. Burman award for the best new talent.

• 1998:Filmfare RD Burman Award for New Music Talent –Grahan
• 2001: Cinema Express Award for Best Music Director –Dumm Dumm Dumm

• Karthik Raja atIMDb
• Official website
• Karthik Raaja Lounge

• 1970 births
• Living people
• People from Theni district
• Tamil film score composers
• Loyola College, Chennai alumni
• 20th-century classical composers
• 21st-century Indian classical composers
• Musicians from Tamil Nadu
• Kannada film score composers
• Telugu film score composers
• Hindi film score composers
• Filmfare Awards winners
• 20th-century Indian musicians
• Ilaiyaraaja

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• EngvarB from August 2014
• Use dmy dates from August 2014
• Articles with hCards