HARRIS JAYARAJ

HARRIS JAYARAJ – Music Director

Harris Jayaraj (born 8 January 1975) was brought up in Chennai. He studied at Krishnaswamy Matric School, K. K. Nagar. His father, S. M. Jayakumar, was a noted film guitarist and an assistant to Malayalam music director Shyam and later became a noted musician and film composer. At age six, Harris began his formal training in carnatic music. His father wanted him to become a guitarist and made him learn classical guitar from Mr.A.Abdul Sattar. Harris scored the highest mark in Asia on his 4th grade exam of Trinity College of Music, London. 

He started his music career as a guitarist in 1987 at age twelve. After befitting as a guitar player, he started playing keyboard and developed interest over synthesizers. He then started programming with his Roland MC-500 and went on to work as a programmer under more than twenty five music directors in Tamil, Telugu, Hindi and Malayalam, working in more than 600 projects till the year 2000. He worked under noted composers including Raj-Koti, A. R. Rahman, Mani Sharma, Karthik Raja, Vidyasagar. While working as an additional programmer under Rahman, he composed music for various television commercials including a Coca-Cola commercial featuring actor Vijay. In his early years, he admired music composers M. S. Viswanathan, percussionist Aruljothi Balagopal, A. R. Rahman and Hans Zimmer.

Harris ventured into film scoring with Gautham Menon's Minnale. The album was well received, particularly the song Vaseegara was exceptionally popular. He received the Filmfare Award for Best Music Director – Tamil for his work in Minnale, breaking the 9 years continuous record of A. R. Rahman. The following soundtrack albums 12B and Majunu met with high acclaim and praise. His Minnale score was later used in the Hindi version, titled Rehnaa Hai Terre Dil Mein also directed by Gautham Menon. He then worked in Lesa Lesa directed by Priyadarshan. The title track of Lesa Lesa was the first song in India to be released as a single prior to a film soundtrack album release (The first ever single to be released prior to an album was Anaida's "hotline"). Harris made his debut in Tollywood with Vasu. He received the Filmfare Award for Best Music Director – Tamil, Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Music Director and ITFA Best Music Director Award for Kaakha Kaakha, starring Suriya and Jyothika. This film directed by Gautham Menon was a huge commercial success and the songs met with great critical acclaim. In its Telugu remake Gharshana two new songs apart from the Tamil version were added to suit the taste of Telugu audience. The song Uyirin Uyire reused as Cheliya Cheliya in Telugu and Khwabon Khwabon in Hindi had effective use of gibberish words which later became a signature element in Harris songs. 

Harris once again paired up with director Jeeva on Ullam Ketkumae after 12B. The music was appreciated for its excellency and synergy with the atmosphere in and out of the movie. Director S. Shankar, noted leading director of Tamil cinema, paired up with Harris in his magnum opus Anniyan. It was the first time Shankar did not team up with A. R. Rahman. Shankar later mentioned that working with Harris was a great experience. The soundtrack album received several awards including Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Music Director and Filmfare Award for Best Music Director – Tamil.^[25][26][27] The next film he scored was Ghajini directed by AR Murugadoss, for which he received Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Music Director. Critics noted that the album had "scintillating, party-hopping numbers", which resulted in a huge commercial success in audio sales; the track "Sutum Vizhi" crossed 20 million downloads and turned out to be phenomenally successful. Harris crafted a necessary classiness into Gautham Menon's blockbuster crime thriller Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu starring Kamal Haasan. Gautham revealed that he shares the entire script with Harris and provides input's from his side.

Harris once again ventured into Tollywood with a successful album Sainikudu. The music album of the film was released simultaneously in 10 chosen venues from five different countries. Gautham Menon who considers the music and background score of Harris as a major asset of his films, once again teamed up with Harris on a romantic-thriller Pachaikili Muthucharam. The soundtracks of Pachaikili Muthucharam are appraised as melancholic, lilting, mysterious, and alternatively catchy. Harris' collaboration with Jeeva continued with Unnale Unnale. The music album oozing with energy all through proved to be a cut above the rest. His next Telugu venture Munna had a good commercial reception, and the song Manasa fetched a Filmfare Best Singer Female award to Sadhana Sargam. With the following album Bheema, Harris continued his mettle with all the six songs. The track Siru Parvaiyalae used Pashto words in interludes. The album was praised for bringing up visual recapitulation from audio. Harris used a live orchestra of 84 members for the action cop film Sathyam. In his career spanning over a decade, he has penned only one song "Kulu Kulu Venpani" for the movie Engeyum Kadhal which was sung by Arjun Menon.

His song " Aathangara Orathil " from the movie Yaan has become a viral hit among the young generation. The audio of his latest movie Anegan has been released recently and the songs are a massive hit. The song "Danga Maari Oodhari" a song in the North Madras Slang has become a chartbuster with many young people constantly listening to this song. In this movie Harris joins director K.V.Anand for the fourth time in a row. Harris in his next project is now collaborating again with director Gautham Vasudev Menon breaking their split of nearly 6 years. This is his first film for Ajith so there is a high expectation from the fans.

He composed music for various television commercials including a Coca-Cola commercial featuring Vijay (actor). In 2008, he composed for Herova? Zerova? ad campaign which Suriya initiated under the Agaram Foundation, working to help children who drop out of school early in Tamil Nadu. With the Ministry of Education in Tamil Nadu, he created a short commercial video outlining child poverty, labour and lack of education, titled Herova? Zerova?. The film was written and produced by Sivakumar and also starred Suriya, Vijay, R. Madhavan and Jyothika.

Harris is married to Joyce (alias Suma), the couple have a son named Samuel Nicholas and a daughter named Karen Nikita. Harris prefers to work in his studio known as Trinity Studios which he has established in his own residence.