Ilaiyaraaja was felicitated by the Tamil Nadu government, on completing 50 years in the film industry. The composer, who began his film journey with Annakili (1976), presented his first ever symphony, titled Valiant, in London.
Speaking at the event, Ilaiyaraaja said, "This symphony is a result of my imagination feeding notes for every instrumentalist of the orchestra. In order to write this symphony, I spent my whole life with music, but I couldn't spend time with my children. If I spent time with my children, I couldn't have composed this symphony, nor could I have composed any of the songs that you listen to. So I mainly want to thank my children, Karthik Raja and Yuvan, for tolerating me."
Talking about composing the symphony, he went on to say, "I had a lot of limits, while writing the symphony. Even though I am from a village, I cannot imbibe folk music. Even though I compose music for films, I cannot use the style, used for those scores. The music shouldn't reflect the fact that I am from Tamil Nadu or from India. Nobody should be able to accuse me of plagarising every international composer that I listened to. But the tears on every one of your eyes, after listening to the symphony, is the end result of my efforts towards composing it."
Ilaiyaraaja also reminisced about a memory he shared with Rajinikanth and director Mahendran. "Rajinikanth told me, 'The amount of antics you got upto after consuming half a bottle of beer, was something else.'" At this point Rajinikanth got up to the microphone and said, "When I was shooting for Johnny, Mahendran and Ilaiyaraaja joined me at my place. After asking Ilaiyaraaja, if he wanted to drink, he consumed half a bottle of beer. The antics he got up after that went on until 3 am in the night. It got to a point where he wanted to know some gossips about the actresses. He is a romantic at heart, the results of which are the songs."
Ilaiyaraaja also announced that he would present his symphony along with the London Philharmonic Orchestra at a later date.
At the same event Tamil Nadu's Chief Minister announced that, on behalf of the Tamil Nadu government, an award, named after Ilaiyaraaja, will be bestowed upon musicians.
