Kalyani Menon

Kalyani Menon (23 June 1941 – 2 August 2021) was an Indian playback singer who worked in the Indian film industry. After beginning her career in the 1970s as a classical singer, Kalyani established a parallel career as a singer in the film industry and worked extensively with A. R. Rahman during the late 1990s and early 2000s. She was awarded the Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Akademi Award in 2008 and the Kalaimamani Award in 2010.^[1][2]

Career

Kalyani Menon learned classical music from M. R. Sivaraman Nair and made a mark as a classical vocalist, before gradually branching out into singing for films. An early Malayalam film song which garnered her acclaim was "Kanneerin Mazhayathum" for composer M. S. Baburaj in Ramu Kariat’s Dweepu (1977).^[3] She began working in Madras during 1977, through Dhananjayan’s Malayalam dance drama Magdalana Mariyam that was choreographed as part of the Vallathol Centenary celebrations. Kalyani sang Vallathol Narayana Menon’s lines that were set to tune by the Dhananjayan. Her first film song in Tamil was with composer Ilaiyaraaja for the song "Sevvaaname Ponmegame" from K. Balaji’s Nallathoru Kudumbam (1979) and the track found frequent airtime. The song "Nee Varuvaaiyena" from Sujatha (1980) and "Thanniya Potta Sandhosham Pirakkum" from Savaal (1981), both composed by M. S. Viswanathan became a major hit and boosted her career.