Uma Ramanan

Personal life and background

While at studies, Uma had gone through her classical music training under Pazhani Vijayalakshmi. She participated in many inter-collegiate competitions and won several rewards and accolades. Later, she met A. V. Ramanan, a Television host, performer and actor, who was on the look out for fresh voices for his stage concerts. From then, Uma and Ramanan became duo stage performers. They are married and have a son who also is a budding musician. She also is a dancer trained under Padma Subrahmanyam.

Playback singing

During Uma's engagement with Ramanan's stage shows, noted producer — cameraman, Janakiraman offered both of them a duet in his 1976 released Hindi film Play Boy. The same pair got an offer to sing for the Tamil film Shri Krishna Leela in 1977 directed by A. P. Nagarajan and one of the last assignments of composer S. V. Venkatraman. In 1980, she sang for the A. V. Ramanan composed film Neerottam. However, it was "Poongathave Thaal Thirava" song for the film Nizhalgal released in the same year and composed by Maestro Ilayaraja that brought her to the front running singers list. It gave her a big career break and she went on to record more than 100 songs with Ilayaraja alone. She has also sung for other music directors namely Vidyasagar, Deva and Mani Sharma.

Professional Rapport with Ilayaraja

Uma Ramanan along with some of her contemporaries is considered to be one of the rare finds of Ilayaraja in his career. She has recorded some of her career best songs under the music composition of Ilayaraja.

Some of her major hits with Ilayaraja include :