Harris Jayaraj was born in Chennai, India on 8th January 1975. He is a film composer, songwriter and soundtrack artist in Tamil cinema. He has composed and written songs for several Tamil, Telugu and Indian films. Currently, he is considered leading composer and music director in South Indian music community.
His works were included in many films as well as TV shows. He worked with many noted musicians including A. R. Rahman, Mani Sharma and Karthik Raja on several music compositions which were later featured in many noted commercials and movies.
In very early age he had shown potential in music and his father realizing his ability arranged necessary learning environment for him. His father, who himself was a noted musician and guitarist, wanted him to become a guitarist as well. Harris started to learn music at the age of six and learned classic guitar on the wish of his father. He notably scored the highest marks in the 4th grade exam conducted by the Trinity College of Music, London. He then gained expertise in guitar playing and at the age of twelve he had started a career as a guitarist. In the meantime he also leaned keyboard, synthesizing and programming. He then worked on several projects and by the year 2000 he had done over 600 projects in various film industries of India.
Harris received many prestigious awards for his work including the “Filmfare Award for Best Music Director” on his very first film breaking the streak of the renowned music director A. R. Rahman. He won the esteemed award again 4 times and got nominated 8 times. His other awards include ITFA Best Music Award, Tamil Nadu State Film Award, Vijay Award, Edison Award, Mirchi Music Award and SIIM Award.
Harris started his film scoring career with “Minnale” which was production of Gautham Menon. His work was highly appreciated and his album was an instant success. One of the songs in his album (Vaseegara) was the most bedazzling of all and was the most hit song of that very album. His next two movies were received with the same praise as the first one and Harris rose to fame and popularity in South Indian cinema. He then engaged himself in a lot of film projects in Tamil as well as Telugu and Hindi, gaining success and popularity in each one of them. His most hit song, “Chaliya Chaliya”, came in the meantime which was reprocessed version of an old Indian song and is still considered his best work.
In 2011, Harris and his crew went on a world tour entitled “Harris on the Edge”. He led a group of artists, singers and dancers and featured performances in concerts and functions all around the world. Harris greatly benefitted from the tour and his fame spread around the world and his work got noticed.
Harris worked a great deal with different charity organization helping the poor and made an awareness video/commercial to benefit the poor and school dropout children. The video depicted the situation of poverty, illiteracy and child labor in the society and was titled as Herova. A number of great artists featured in the commercial.
Harris Jayaraj nowadays lives with his family in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. He is married to Joyce and has two children named Samuel and Karen. He works in a studio adjacent to his house in Chennai.