Ilaiyaraaja collaborates with Budapest Symphony Orchestra 

Ilaiyaraaja and the Budapest Symphony Orchestra come together for ‘Music School’. The film also features three songs from ‘The Sound of Music’, orchestrated by the London Philharmonic Orchestra

Music maestro Ilaiyaraaja was in Budapest recently to record with the Budapest Symphony Orchestra and give finishing touches to the music and background score of Music School. The film features 11 songs of which three are from the all-time favourite classic, The Sound of Music. Music School stars Sharman Joshi and Shriya Saran and discusses how the academic system leaves children with not enough time to pursue art and leisure activities. 

Papa Rao Biyyala, the writer and director of Music School, reveals that the team obtained the rights for the songs ‘Do Re Mi’, ‘I am 16 Going on 17’ and ‘So Long, farewell’ from The Sound of Music to be used in the film. The three songs were orchestrated by the London Philharmonic Orchestra prior to the shoot of the film. So Ilaiyaraaja and Biyyala thought it would be apt to have an orchestra of equal stature, like the Budapest Symphony, score the rest of the music of the film.

Biyyala states, “Ilaiyaraaja has written many parts of the film’s background music for a symphony orchestra. Hence we approached the Budapest Symphony Orchestra, which is one of the leading orchestras in the world.” 

The recording was done at the Tom-Tom Studio in Budapest and Laszlo Kovacs conducted the Budapest Symphony Orchestra.

The Hindi-Telugu bilingual film is produced by Hyderabad-based Yamini Films and also stars Shaan, Prakash Raj, Suhasini Mulay, Benjamin Gilani, Gracy Goswami and Ozu Barua. Kiran Deohans is the cinematographer. 

Music School will be screened on September 12 and 18 at the Toronto International Film Festival’s industry/market section.