Rita Thyagarajan alias Sucharitha Thyagarajan (born 10 June 1984), known by the mononym Rita, is an Indian

playback singer A playback singer, also known as a ghost singer, is a singer whose singing is pre-recorded for use in films. Playback singers record songs for soundtracks, and actors or actresses lip-sync the songs for cameras; the actual singer does not app ...

who sings in

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nativ ...

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode S ...

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...

and

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam was des ...

languages.

Early life

Rita was born in

Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a States and union territories of India, state in southern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, tenth largest Indian state by area and the List of states and union territories of India ...

. She was exposed to classical music very early in life and started attending classical

Carnatic music Carnatic music, known as or in the Dravidian languages, South Indian languages, is a system of music commonly associated with South India, including the modern Indian states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, an ...

lessons at the age of five. Her mother Lalitha Thyagarajan is a veteran illustrator and artist in Chennai and also a classical veena player while her father is employed with a popular Indian daily. She later started learning

Hindustani classical music Hindustani classical music is the classical music of northern regions of the Indian subcontinent. It may also be called North Indian classical music or, in Hindustani, ''shastriya sangeet'' (). It is played in instruments like the violin, sita ...

and has trained under celebrated masters in Chennai. Her sister is also trained in classical Carnatic music and runs her own design consultancy business in Chennai. Rita did her early schooling in P.S. Senior Secondary School in Mylapore and moved on to do a bachelor's degree in design from Stella Maris College like her mother and sister. It was in college that she discovered her penchant for other styles of music and experimented with commercial film and Western styles. She is also a

graphic designer A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography, or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, ...

and visualiser and co-founder of a design studio of integrated freelance professionals called Utopik.

Early career

Rita started her career with

D. Imman Immanuel Vasanth Dinakaran (born 24 January 1983), better known as D. Imman, is an Indian film composer and singer, predominantly working in Tamil cinema. Also worked in Kannada, Malayalam, Telugu, and Hindi film industry. His first film as mu ...

, who contacted her after listening to her demo CD which she had recorded after college. "Yendan Varungaalaveetukaraney" from the movie ''Aanai'' was the first song she recorded and from then she has recorded over 300 songs and jingles in all major

South Indian South India, also known as Dakshina Bharata or Peninsular India, consists of the peninsular southern part of India. It encompasses the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana, as well as the union territo ...

languages. She got her big break with the song "Vada Mapillai" in '' Villu,'' and then recorded songs like "Allegra" and "Mambo mamiyaa" for Kandasamy in Tamil. She was nominated for the

Filmfare Award The Filmfare Awards are annual awards that honour artistic and technical excellence in the Hindi-language film industry of India.Al The Filmfare ceremony is one of the most famous film events in India. The awards were first introduced by th ...

for the song "Allegra". Her song "Vada Mapillai" won Best Song of the Year at the

Radio Mirchi Radio Mirchi (also known as 98.3 Mirchi) is a nationwide network of private FM radio stations in India. It is owned by the ENIL, EntertainmentNetwork India Ltd (ENIL), which is one of the subsidiaries of The Times Group. ''Mirchi'' is Hindi f ...

Music awards. She recorded songs in Telugu like "Khilaadikoona" from ''

Athidhi ''Athidhi'' () is a 2007 Indian Telugu-language action romance film starring Mahesh Babu and Amrita Rao, directed by Surender Reddy and produced by G. Ramesh Babu, brother of Mahesh Babu, under their banner Krishna Pictures Private Limited. I ...

'' for

Mani Sharma Mani may refer to: Geography * Maní, Casanare, a town and municipality in Casanare Department, Colombia * Mani, Chad, a town and sub-prefecture in Chad * Mani, Evros, a village in northeastern Greece * Mani, Karnataka, a village in Dakshina ...

and "Panchadharabomma" for M. M. Keeravani which again won the Song of the Year award at the Radio Mirchi music awards. Rita has worked with music directors like

Ilaiyaraaja Ilaiyaraaja (born R. Gnanathesikan, 3 June 1943) is an Indian musician, composer, arranger, conductor, orchestrator, instrumentalist, lyricist and singer, popular for his works in Indian Cinema, prominently in Tamil films. Reputed to be one of ...

Yuvan Shankar Raja Yuvan Shankar Raja or Abdul Haliq (born 31 August 1979) is an Indian film score and soundtrack composer and singer-songwriter. He mainly scores music for Tamil films. Considered a versatile composer, he is particularly known for his use of Wes ...

, Vidyasagar,

Devi Sri Prasad Devi Sri Prasad (; born 2 August 1979) is an Indian film composer, lyricist, singer-songwriter and performer. Popularly known by his initials DSP, he is best known for his work in Telugu-language films, and has also worked in a few Tamil films ...

, S.S. Thaman, M. Jeychandran, and M. M. Keeravani. She also performs for stage shows in Singapore, Malaysia, Dubai, Sri Lanka, London, Amsterdam, France, Muscat, Canada, USA, and Australia.

Tamil

Telugu

Kannada

Malayalam

Television Title Songs

Kalyana Parisu ''Kalyana Parisu'' () is a 1959 Indian Tamil-language romantic drama film written and directed by Sridhar. The film stars Gemini Ganesan and B. Saroja Devi while K. A. Thangavelu, Vijayakumari, M. Saroja, S. D. Subbulakshmi, A. Nageswara Rao ...

- 2014 *

Vidhi ''Vidhi'' () is a 1984 Indian Tamil-language legal drama film directed by K. Vijayan. A remake of the Telugu film ''Nyayam Kavali'' (1981), it stars Sujatha, Mohan, Poornima, and Jaishankar. The film revolves around a court case that Radha ...

- 2017 * Nila - 2019

References

Rita - Sunrisers - Tamil / Telugu

* *
My first break - Singer Rita

Sources

* * * * * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Rita Thyagarajan Living people Indian women playback singers Telugu playback singers Tamil playback singers Kannada playback singers Malayalam playback singers Singers from Chennai 1984 births Women musicians from Tamil Nadu 21st-century Indian singers 21st-century Indian women singers