N. C. Karunya

N.C.Karunya
Karunya's Single "O Priyathamaa" Poster.
Background information
Born	(1986-03-01) 1 March 1986
Origin	Hyderabad, Telangana, India
Occupation(s)	Singer,Songwriter,Youtuber,Stage performer,TV host
Years active	2006 – present
Website	https://www.facebook.com/Karunya-281374505243265/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChuaTUVnaCAyitSrekiTENQ

N.C.Karunya is a popular Indian playback singer, stage performer, YouTuber, songwriter, and TV show host. His claim to fame was the popular reality show Indian Idol (Season 2) on Sony Entertainment Television.^[1] After Indian Idol he became a popular recording artist by singing for more than 200 projects in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Bengali but his mainstay has been Telugu, his mother tongue. He has also hosted various musical reality shows. In 2017, he launched his own YouTube channel and started releasing singles composed, written, and arranged by himself.

Karunya is known for his exceptionally versatile singing style which ranges from pure classical to western and his high pitched singing. He has received numerous awards from the media and government organisations for his songs in movies, telefilms and daily soaps. He is also known for his energetic on-stage persona and for his linguistic skills (especially Telugu) as a TV show host.

Early life

N.C.Karunya was born on 1 March 1986, to N.C.Madhu and P.Janaki in Hyderabad, India. His father comes from the prestigious "Nallan Chakravarthy" family which is known for many greats in the fields of music, literature, and dance including the famous Sanskrit and Telugu Pandit, Classical Vocalist, Violinist N.Ch.Krishnamaachaaryulu,the dance exponent C.R.Acharya and also Karunya's own grandfathers "Sreenivaasa Sodarulu" who were very famous Avadhaanis. Karunya has a younger sister Deevena who is instrumental in his transformation as a YouTube Singer & Songwriter. Both his parents worked for Defence and now are retired. Karunya often observes that maybe his sense of deeply rooted patriotism comes from his parents' Defence background.

Being born into a culturally rich family, it was only natural for Karunya to take an active interest in singing and dancing. He started learning classical music at the age of 5, learnt Kuchipudi for some time until he had to choose between music and dance apart from his school work, and gave it up in favour of music. He even started composing songs at the age of 3. He was the most prominent member of the school choir. He won many a singing competition bagging many medals for himself and his school . At the age of 12 he won the first children's series of the very popular "ETV Paaduthaa Theeyagaa" hosted by the legendary S.P.Balasubramanyam.

Karunya with his Paaduthaa Theeyagaa trophy

He has been training in Carnatic classical under his Guru, "Vaaggeya Vidwanmani" Sri N.C. Murthy since the year 2000 and still continues to do so.

Indian Idol 2

Karunya auditioned for Indian Idol season 2 in the year 2005. The judges were one of the most revered and celebrated singer of India Mr.Sonu Nigam,Music Director Anu Malik and Director-Choreographer Farah Khan. Although he did not win the competition, Karunya was the most popular participant in Indian Idol 2, especially with people in North India because of his performances of Punjabi and Rajasthani songs.^[2] He made it to the top two but had to settle for being the first runner-up in the finale due to the lack of votes.

Karunya during Indian Idol in 2006.

Films

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 Mr.Chopra, director Rajkumar Hirani and music director Shantanu Moitra and began his Playback career by singing for Sanjay Dutt. 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 rooted for him during Indian Idol. In that series of meetings when he met Jr. NTR , he was offered his first Telugu hit "Ekaantangaa unna" by NTR himself, a song composed by his dream composer Mani Sharma, for the film Ashok.After this song, he went on to record many chartbusters like "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, Oola Oolala Ala from Orange, Vayyarala jabilli from Pawan Kalyan's Teenmar,"Andam andam" from Vetadu-Ventadu,composed by none other than Yuvan Shankar Raja,starring Vishal (actor),"Meher meher" from "D for dopidi","Suvvi Suvvaalamma" from the movie Loafer,two beautiful songs for "It's my lovestory" and many more.

He was the voice behind the short film made by Allu Arjun and director Sukumar, I Am That Change.

Phir mile sur

Karunya was the youngest singer to be a part of the prestigious 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. 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 Louis Banks.

Album

Karunya album cover

Karunya released his first Hindi album, the self-titled Karunya, on 9 August 2008. The music was composed by Lesle Lewis and the video was directed by the sister of Pradeep Sarkar Parineeta (2005 film), Madhu Sarkar. Though there was a sellout in Hyderabad as well as a place in the charts in Delhi and Kolkata, Karunya's fans felt that he should have released an album which highlighted his ability to sing high notes and his classical leanings more. Most of them felt it was an underwhelming album. Karunya, on the other hand, remarked that this was an Indi-pop album so there was no place for classical gymnastics in it.

Shows

Karunya performing at Ramoji Film City Winter Carnival

Karunya has performed in numerous concerts in India and abroad and still continues to do so.

His show in Dallas on 7 October 2006 had an audience of 40,000. He has toured America, performed in The Emirates, Singapore and East Africa and West Africa.^[3]

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 two lakh people of about 101 nationalities and presided over by the President of India Smt. Pratibha Patil.

Reality show host

Karunya hosted the reality show Little Champs on Zee Telugu, Airtel "Saptaswaralu", on ETV, Vijetha-Voice of Andhra on local TV with M. M. Keeravani as the judge and Super Singer 8, on Maa TV with again M. M. Keeravani and also Smt. K.S.Chitra as the judges. Karunya is known for his amazing Telugu diction and clarity, his comradeship with the contestants in the shows, his opening performances in each episode, his attires and especially his unique intros of the judges in every episode of every show. He attributes his diction and the unique anchoring style to his parents and more importantly to his father who writes his scripts for the shows.

Discography

ETV Swarabhishekam

Karunya is prominently featured in the television's ambitious and prestigious musical show, ETV's "Swarabhishekam", a show in which former greats, contemporary popular singers and rising talent collaborate to celebrate Telugu film music. He has gained a huge popularity through this show.

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 in the year 2006.
• 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 playback 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"
• He won the Aalapana award for the "Best male playback singer-2011" for his song "Thadi pedavule" from the Telugu movie "It's My lovestory".
• He won the Saakshi Excellence Award for the "Best Male Playback Singer-2015" for his song "Suvvi Suvvaalammaa" in the Telugu movie Loafer.
• He won his second Nandi award from the Government of A.P. for title song of the daily serial Ashta Chamma telecast on Maa TV.

Youtuber Singer/Songwriter

Karunya's Prema Geethika Still.

In 2017, Karunya started his own YouTube channel named 'nckarunya' to produce his own music videos. His first single O Priyathamaa written, composed, arranged and sung by him, went on to become an instant hit with all the music lovers. He then released his second single Prema Geethika which was a sweet innocent love song and then recently released the peppy folk number "Maayarogam" which is creating ripples since its release.

This YouTube channel has a three-layered approach to Indian music. One one hand it features the commercially sounding and visualised music videos for the mainstream audiences. On the other hand, it also features Light music videos by Karunya as a tribute to all his Light music gurus. This series is called "Vandebhaavagurum". Apart from this the channel also features the Carnatic classical recital videos of Karunya for the classically inclined.

Carnatic classical

Karunya during a Carnatic recital

In 2017, Karunya made an announcement that he will be giving Carnatic classical recitals too as much as possible to popularise and promote his Guru,"Vaaggeya Vidwanmani" Sri Nallan Chakravarthy Murthy's compositions. He gave two successful recitals starting in October in that year followed by one more in March 2018.

References