N. C. Karunya

Karunya

N. C. Karunya (Telugu: కారుణ్య, Hindi: कारुण्य) is a popular playback singer. He was a runner-up on the popular reality show Indian Idol (Season 2) on Sony Entertainment Television.

Biography

Early life

Karunya was born on 1 March 1986 in the city of Hyderabad into a family of classical singers.^[1] Though he has been under the training of his paternal uncles and aunts since the age of four in Carnatic music, his intensive training started under his tauji N. C. Murthy at the age of 14. His schooling and initial foray into music were at his alma mater Brahm Prakash DAV, Kanchan Bagh. While in school, he used to sing devotional songs during the morning assembly. He did his Bachelors in Electronics and Communications Engineering.

Karunya released an album called Chiru Sarigamalu in his childhood, which was launched by Chiranjeevi. He later went on to win the acclaimed, Paadutha Theeyaga hosted by S. P. Balasubrahmanyam, on Eenadu Television. He was appreciated highly by SPB and the audience of Andhra Pradesh for his versatility. He was the leader of his school choir from the age of 7. He has participated in various local stage shows and TV shows in A.P. and has recorded a number of children's, devotional and patriotic songs for several non-film music directors. At the age of 12 his second album, Sai Madhuri, was released by Sri Sri Satya Saibaba in the presence of Pt. Shiv Kumar Sharma in Bangalore.

Karunya always wanted to do playback singing in multiple languages, including Hindi. For this, first he started out meeting the local music directors but the going was very tough since he did not know any important people from the industry. Even then, in 2005 before he auditioned for Indian Idol 2, he had already sung two songs in the Telugu movie Vamsham.

Indian idol 2

Once he auditioned for Indian idol 2,there was no looking back for Karunya.He immediately became the darling of the masses with his innocent charm and confidence while the class loved him for his speckless renditions.He was an instant hit with all the north Indians because of his unbelievable performance of the Punjabi and Rajasthani songs .The judges,Celebrities and all the other musicians all over India rooted and prayed for him to win the competition.Especially,Karunya was the first South Indian contestant on Indian Idol to have garnered as much interest as he did.Suddenly,whole of A.P sat up and took notice of one of their own talents and started rooting for him.In the end though Karunya did not win the title he was declared the unofficial winner of the contest by one and all through blogs and the newspapers.and finally he is therunner up of Indian idol 2

Films and playback

After the end of Indian Idol 2, Karunya was called for an audition by Vidhu Vinod Chopra for Lage Raho Munnabhai. He was immensely liked by Vidhu, director Raju Hirani and music director Shantanu Moitra. He recorded the song in one take in just 15 minutes. Then he sang a song in Jai Santoshi Maa for Anu Malik. After that, he went to Hyderabad to meet members of the Telugu film industry who had supported him for Indian Idol. Then he recorded his first Telugu song for his dream composer Manisarma, for the film Ashok starring Jr. NTR. The song was very well received and Karunya was offered many more songs in Telugu. He went on to record “Orugalluke Pilla” from the film Sainikudu, Enduko from Chirutha, 123 Nenoka Kantri from Kantri, Ammayi Kitiki Pakkana from Maryada Ramanna, Om Namo Siva Rudraya from Khaleja, and Ola Olaala from Orange.

He started 2011 with a bang with his songs-a racy and rocking Yamaga unde from Jr.NTR's movie Shakti and a romantic and retro Vayyarala jabilli from Pavan Kalyan's "Teenmar", both composed by Mani Sarma. His song Dheere dheere dheere dille from Seema Tapakai has also been received well. He has recorded for about 45 films till date.

Album

Karunya released his first Hindi album, the self-titled Karunya, on August 9, 2008. The music was composed by Lesle Lewis and the video was directed by a sister of Pradeep Sarkar (Parineeta), Madhu Sarkar. The album was received well by his fans; there was a sellout in Hyderabad as well as a place in the charts in Delhi and Kolkata.

Shows

He had done numerous concerts in and abroad India and still continues to do so.

His show in Dallas on 7 October 2006 had an audience of 40,000, the highest for any Indian artist in the US. He has extensively toured America, performed in The Emirates, Singapore and East and West Africa.

Again in August 2008, he performed before a huge audience of about 25,000 people in the 33rd Anand Bazaar, which is an annual Indian independence celebration in Dallas. He was the first Indian performer to have performed in that event.

He is the only artist to have performed at the opening ceremony of the World Military Games held in Hyderabad in the year 2007, before an audience of about 2 lakh people of about 101 nationalities and presided over by the President of India Smt. Pratibha Patil.

Reality show contestant to reality show host

Karunya hosted the reality show Sa Ri Ga Ma Pa Little Champs in Telugu telecast on Zee Telugu. This show was a huge hit among Telugu audiences. Karunya was already well known with the cosmopolitan crowd in AP. But with this show, he became a household name all over AP. He took up ‘'Airtel Saptaswaralu’', which was aired on ETV and later on hosted Vijetha-Voice of Andhra on Local TV with M. M. Keeravani as the judge.

Phir mile sur

Karunya was the youngest singer to be a part of the remake of the song "Mile sur mera tumhaara". It was remade in 2010 and released as "Phir mile sur" on republic day on Zoom TV. It features eminent personalities from all walks of life. Karunya was suggested to the director, Kailash Surendranath, by Mahesh Babu and his wife Namrata Shirodkar. Mahesh Babu himself featured in the video. Representing Telugu people solely, he wanted Karunya to be his voice. Karunya recorded his part of the song under the guidance of Louiz Banks.

Discography

Some of the movies in which he has given playback are Lage Raho Munnabhai, Ashok, Kantri, Shakti, Teenmaar, Chirutha, Orange, Sainikudu, Khaleja, Chandamama, Arundhati, Maryada Ramanna, Seema Sastry, Siddu from Sikakulam, Seema Tapakai, Dubai Seenu, Andari Bandhuvaya,Baladoorand Brahmigadi kadha.

Awards

• He won the Bharathamuni award for Best Male Debut Playback Singer.
• He won the Vamsi-Berkeley award for Best Male Playback Singer.
• He won the Nandi award from the Government of A.P. for a song sung for the teleserial Melukolupu.
• He was honored as the “Young Rising Star of India” by the Undersecretary-General of the UN, Shashi Tharoor in New York.
• He was honored as “One of the rare talents of Indian music Industry” by the prestigious organisation IANT of Dallas.
• He received Santosham film magazine's ”Best Male Playback Singer of the Year 2007” award for his song in Chirutha.
• He was nominated in the "Best Male Playback Singer" category in the 56th Filmfare awards for his song "Andamaina Kalala" from the movie Baladoor.
• He won the "Best male plaback singer of the year" award at the Big Tollywood awards conducted by 92.7 BIG FM in association with ETV for his song "Sydney" from "Orange".
• He won the Filmfare award in the "Best male playback singer-telugu" category in the 58th Filmfare south awards for his song "Sada Siva" from "Khaleja"
• He won the Santosham award in the "Best male playback singer-2010" category again for his song "Sada Siva" from "Khaleja"

References

1. ^ http://books.google.com/books?id=rvVWPsjx1iwC&pg=PA342

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Name	Karunya, N. C.
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Date of birth	1988
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