Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy

Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy is an Indian musical trio consisting of Shankar Mahadevan, Ehsaan Noorani and Loy Mendonsa. They have composed music for over 50 soundtracks across five languages - Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, and English. Amongst the most critically acclaimed Indian musicians, the trio have won numerous awards, including National Film Award (India), Filmfare Awards, IIFA Awards. Shankar, Ehsaan & Loy came up from the ranks of the non-film music scene, performing rock, blues, jazz, and pop before entering the film music industry. Shankar Mahadevan, a software engineer, worked on Oracle Version Six and studied Western, Hindustani and Carnatic classical music. He made his debut with the 1985 Marathi film Vahinichi Maya. A leading playback singer with Pukar, Sapnay and Biwi No.1 to his credit, he also composed "Breathless". Ehsaan Noorani studied music at the Musicians' Institute in Los Angeles and worked with the like of Ronnie Desai, Laxmikant-Pyarelal, Kalyanji-Anandji and Louis Banks. He composed Alien Desire, did several jingles and like Loy, was part of a blues-and-acid jazz band. Loy Mendonsa is trained in Western classical and also learned the rudiments of Indian classical music. He performed with several group bands, plays (Godspell, West Side Story, Jesus Christ Superstar) and composed jingles and signature tunes (Fauji, The World This Week). Ehsaan was doing jingles and Loy was in Delhi before the union. Loy was writing for television then. The show Quiz Time was his first work and Siddharth Basu gave him his first break. Then he did Prannoy Roy's The World This Week. A few more shows came along and he also did theatre and Shahrukh Khan's Fauji. Loy had also worked as keyboardist with A. R. Rahman and Shankar had sung many famous tracks for him. In 1989, Ehsaan met Loy, who was working for Ranjit Barot, an ad film composer. From then on, they joined together and composed several ad jingles together. Later, Ehsaan and Loy met Shankar when he was roped in by Ranjit Barot to sing for the Pepsi ad directed by Mukul Anand. Since then, they started to compose for ads as a trio. Each member of the trio brings his own talents and experiences to the group, combining the Carnatic and Hindustani vocal tradition (Shankar), Western rock (Ehsaan) and a deep understanding of fusion including a virtual mastery over the electronic synthesizer (Loy). They continue a tradition quite common in Bollywood music, that of partnerships between music composers contributing and pooling their individual strengths, often combining deep knowledge of Hindustani (North Indian) and Carnatic (South Indian) classical music with technical expertise as composers and orchestral arrangers. Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy probably represent the first trio of composers to entertain Bollywood audiences themselves with their chart-topping music. The eternal quest among Bollywood's music composers has been to create interest among younger audiences who tend to be inspired more by musical themes and influences from the West. Since a film's soundtrack is a very influential and critical component of commercial and critical success (required and achieved or sometimes squandered at the box office), this quest to "deliver a film" has always inspired composers to create tunes which combine the best of both traditional Indian music and popular Western or international influences. An overwhelming majority of Bollywood's most popular music has been composed based on classical Indian rāgas (in Sanskrit "raga" is literally "color" or "mood"). Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy have bridged that gap. Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy were the recipients of several awards, including three Filmfare awards (Bunty Aur Babli, Kal Ho Naa Ho, 2 States), three International Indian Film Academy Awards (Kal Ho Naa Ho, Bunty Aur Babli, My Name is Khan), three Star Screen awards (Dil Chahta Hai, Bunty Aur Babli, My Name Is Khan),one Filmfare RD Burman Award for New Music Talent and two MTV Immies Awards. In 2004, they received the National Film Award for Best Music Direction for the film Kal Ho Naa Ho. Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy won the Filmfare and IIFA awards 2015 for 2 states. In 2010, they were honored with the Years of Excellence at the Jack Daniel's Annual Rock Awards at Hard Rock Café, Mumbai. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.