Balamurali Balu is an Indian film music director and

lyricist A lyricist is a writer who writes lyrics (the spoken words), as opposed to a composer, who writes the song's music which may include but not limited to the melody, harmony, arrangement and accompaniment. Royalties A lyricist's income derives ...

who has worked predominantly in the

Tamil film industry Tamil cinema is the segment of cinema of India, Indian cinema dedicated to the production of Film, motion pictures in the Tamil language, the main spoken language in the state of Tamil Nadu. It is nicknamed Kollywood, a portmanteau of the nam ...

. His first movie was '' Madhiyal Vell'' and composed music for '' Pallu Padama Paathuka''. Subsequently, he composed music for '' Peechankai''. This critically acclaimed film was Balu's debut as a composer. He was praised for "adding the quirkiness" to the music aligning with the theme of the movie's script.

Early life

Balu is a professional music composer in South India. He has also worked as a

music director A music director, musical director or director of music is a person responsible for the musical aspects of a performance, production, or organization. This would include the artistic director and usually chief conductor of an orchestra or concert ...

and a

film score composer A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film. The score comprises a number of orchestral, instrumental, or choral pieces called cues, which are timed to begin and end at specific points during the film in order to ...

. Balu was born on the 16th of July and was raised in

Chennai Chennai, also known as Madras (List of renamed places in India#Tamil Nadu, its official name until 1996), is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Tamil Nadu by population, largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost states and ...

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is the southernmost States and union territories of India, state of India. The List of states and union territories of India by area, tenth largest Indian state by area and the List of states and union territories of Indi ...

, India. Prior to his music career, Balu completed his

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

from

Georgia Tech The Georgia Institute of Technology (commonly referred to as Georgia Tech, GT, and simply Tech or the Institute) is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Established in 1885, it has the lar ...

chemical engineering Chemical engineering is an engineering field which deals with the study of the operation and design of chemical plants as well as methods of improving production. Chemical engineers develop economical commercial processes to convert raw materials ...

in 2009 and worked as a Process Engineer with

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...

Technologies. He is also an alumni from the

Berklee College of Music Berklee College of Music () is a Private university, private music college in Boston, Boston, Massachusetts. It is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known for the study of jazz and modern Music of the United ...

. He entered the music industry through Tamil cinema since 2016.

Career

In 2012, he worked on the short film '' Tamil Ini''. In 2017, Balu got his first chance in the Tamil film industry when he was offered an opportunity to score music for the movie '' Peechankai''. The music was well-received and appreciated for adding value to the quirkiness of the script. He won the Best Music Producer Award in the Regional Film Category at the Indian Recording Artists Association Awards 2018 for the movie. In 2018, Balu joined hands with director Santhosh P. Jayakumar to score music for the film '' Hara Hara Mahadevaki'', which starred

Gautham Karthik Gautham Ram Karthik (born 12 September 1989) is an Indian actor who works in Tamil language, Tamil-language films. He made his acting debut in Mani Ratnam's ''Kadal (2013 film), Kadal'' (2013). He is a recipient of one Filmfare Award South, a T ...

. The music created a lot of attention, especially with the title song "Hara Hara Mahadevaki" becoming a viral hit. With the success of ''Hara Hara Mahadevaki'', Balu continued with '' Iruttu Araiyil Murattu Kuththu'', his second collaboration with Jayakumar and Gautham Karthik. He later composed the biographical film '' Traffic Ramasamy'', based on the life of activist

Traffic Ramaswamy K. R. Ramaswamy (1 April 1934 – 4 May 2021), referred to by the media as Traffic Ramaswamy, was an Indian public interest litigator and social activist from Chennai, Tamil Nadu. He was a mill worker, a founder member of Tamil Nadu's Home Gua ...

. Afterwards, Balu collaborated with Jayakumar for the third time with the

Arya ''Aryan'' (), or ''Arya'' (borrowed from Sanskrit ''ārya''),Oxford English Dictionary Online 2024, s.v. ''Aryan'' (adj. & n.); ''Arya'' (n.)''.'' is a term originating from the ethno-cultural self-designation of the Indo-Iranians. It stood i ...

-starrer '' Ghajinikanth'', a remake of the Telugu film '' Bhale Bhale Magadivoy''. In 2019, Balu composed music for '' Chikati Gadilo Chithakotudu'', the Telugu remake of ''Iruttu Araiyil Murattu Kuththu'', which marked his Telugu film debut. In 2022, Balu produced the soundtrack for '' Kuthukku Pathu'', a comedy-drama

web series A web series (also known as webseries, short-form series, and web show) is a series of short scripted or non-scripted online videos, generally in episodic form, released on the Internet (i.e. World Wide Web), which first emerged in the late 1 ...

Discography

Films

Television

Albums

Balu has collaborated with

Lady Kash Kalaivani Nagaraj, also known as Lady Kash (born 1990), is a rapper, artist, and songwriter from Singapore. She has worked with composers such as A.R Rahman, Yuvan Shankar Raja, Anirudh Ravichander, Santhosh Narayanan, Harris Jayaraj, and T ...

as a music producer in her albums Rap Smash and Villupaattu.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Balu, Balamurali Musicians from Chennai Living people Tamil film score composers 1970 births