Harris Jayaraj

Biography

Harris Jayaraj (born 8 January 1975) is an Indian composer from Chennai, Tamil Nadu. He composes soundtracks predominantly for Tamil films, while also having composed for a few films in Telugu and two films in Hindi.

He has been honored with the Kalaimamani Award from the Government of Tamil Nadu and the Life Time Achievement Award from Konijeti Rosaiah, the Governor of Tamil Nadu. Since 2001, he has won 6 Filmfare Awards South and has received 20 Filmfare Awards South nominations.

He has also won 6 Mirchi Music Awards, 5 Vijay Awards, 4 Tamil Nadu State Film Awards, 3 International Tamil Film Awards, and Big FM Awards. In 2019, he was bestowed with the Dr. M.G.R. Educational and Research Institute Honorary Doctorate of Letters for his significant contributions to Tamil cinema music.

Harris Jayaraj was born and brought up in Chennai in a Christian family. His father hails from a Tamil Christian family and his mother from a Hindu Naidu family. He studied at Krishnaswamy Matric School. At age six, Harris began his formal training in Carnatic music.

His father, S. M. Jayakumar, was a noted film guitarist and has frequently collaborated with T. M. Soundararajan, A. L. Raghavan, M.S.Viswanathan, Soolamangalam Sisters, K. J. Yesudas, S. Janaki, Shankar Ganesh, S.P.Balasubramaniam, K. V. Mahadevan, Malaysia Vasudevan, L. R. Eswari, Jikki, K. Jamuna Rani, P.Susheela and Malayalam music director Shyam.

Following two distressing bomb blast incidents he became more religiously inclined and young Harris had to take over the family responsibility. His father wanted him to become a guitarist and made him learn classical guitar from Mr. A. Abdul Sattar.