ABOUT
Karthikeya Murthy
The first Indian Composer to be selected as
BAFTA BREAKTHROUGH HONOREE.
KM is the first Indian Composer to be selected as BAFTA `{`British Academy of Film & Television Arts`}` BREAKTHROUGH HONOREE (2021). Prior to this honor, he has won awards for his score in International Film Festivals.
His career started with the song he composed (2005) while on a bike ride, for his friend. The song eventually played an important part in making his band MADRAS TUNES a winner in a band hunt show judged by Academy award winner A.R.Rahman.
Trained in Carnatic Classical ( by Mr. (Chengalpet) Renganathan, Mrs. DKJ. Sukanya & Mrs. Premalatha for more than 12 years) and Thamizh Folk, his melody line has strong influences from these 2 genres with additional influences from Santali, Raaz, Sufi, Bhajan and Rajasthani folk music.
He was trained in Western Classical Music (Piano & Theory by Mr. Abdul Sattar). KM’s arrangements have wide influences of genres like Western Classical, Waltz, Tango, Rock, Pop, Electronic & Dubstep. What makes his music unique is defined by his suave infusing different genres to capture the emotional subtlety and complexity of a given situation.
His musical pursuits have primarily been towards film score and songs which according to him is a successful marriage between the art of silence and music with artistic value, form and enriching depth that enhances the emotions. He also enjoys working in other areas like a documentary, ad films, theatre work, etc. as each has its own set of challenges like being subtle, pulling audience attention within a few seconds, etc.
In 2009, he got his first breakthrough from ace director K. Balachander. Until then a part-time composer, the project gave him the right pathway for his career. Post this opportunity he started working on several short films (50+), ad films and live music concerts. It was during one such project that he was working for his friend in an Audio engineering school, ace singer S.P. Balasubrahmanyam and his son S.P. Charan spotted his talent and made him the composer for their next bilingual production Moone Moonu Varthai/Moodu Mukkalo Cheppalante (2015). He also started working as a composer for several successful TV shows including Tamil Kadavul Murugan (2017) and Vijay Sethupathi’s Namma Ooru Hero (2018).
In 2019 KM got his first major breakthrough in the movie KD (a) Karuppudurai. In this critically acclaimed movie, his score was widely appreciated with Times of India mentioning it as “jaunty and moving in the right places” and Firstpost mentioning “bubbly score that feels like childlike mischief made tangible (you’ll probably hum it for days)”.
KM aspires to bring out the myriad aspects of several Indian folk (specifically Thamizh Folk) genres for people across the globe to relish.