Thiruthuraipoondi Radhakrishnan Pappa

Thiruthuraipoondi Radhakrishnan Pappa was an Indian music director of Tamil, Telugu, and Sinhalese films. T. R. Pappa was born on 03 July 1922 at Thiruthuraipoondi, Madras Presidency, British India. Pappa's real name is Sivasankaran, and he is from a lineage of a musical family. He started training on the violin from early childhood. His father could not pay tuition fees his education was stopped in the middle. He was trained by Siva Vadivelu Pillai, who joined the National Movie Tone cinema company as a fiddle player in some movies Seemanthini 1936 and Parvathi Kalyanam 1936, and this life of carrying instruments ended in 1938.

After, he joined as a helper to S. G. Kasi Iyer, elder brother of great Kittappa. In 1941, most of the citizens were flying to other towns due to fear of the Japanese Bombing Jupiter Pictures was shifted to Coimbatore, and M. S. Viswanathan went with S. V. Venkatraman who was a famous music director in those days. Kalki's daughter Ananthi, and Sadasivam's daughter Radha were dancers, jointly made dance Programmes, with M. S. Viswanathan as Playback Singer along with Pappa Violin. Pappa started playing the violin in Manonmani (Modern Theatres) and Kannagi, Kubera Kuchela, and Mahamaya (Jupiter Pictures).

In the late 40s, Pappa and T. K. Ramamoorthy were the highest-paid violinists for the movies and were always in demand. Pappa became the music director for the Malayalam film Aathmasanthi in 1952. The chance was given to him by Joseph Thaliath Jr Joseph Thaliath Jr. was a producer and Indian film >> Read More... . of Citadel Film Corporation. This film is dubbed in Tamil under the same title. Then onwards, Pappa went on to compose many Citadel films such as Mallika, Vijayapuri Veeran, Vilakketriyaval, Iravum Pagalum, and Kathal Paduthum Padu. Pappa also composed music for many Sinhalese films. The song Siriyame Sara, sung by H. R. Jothipala is one of the popular hits in Sinhalese.

The singing actors K. R. Ramasamy, T. R. Rajakumari, P. Bhanumathi, N. S. Krishnan, T. A. Madhuram, and J. P. Chandrababu also sang memorable songs under his compositions. As a Nilaya Vidwan of AIR from 1946, Pappa accompanied the violin for many great classical vocalists. He composed music for many wonderful devotional albums with Seerkazhi Govindarajan where the song Chinnanjiru Penn Pole dedicated to the Goddess Abirami is notable.

He scored music for the album Abirami Andhaadhi. He has served as the Principal of Madras Music College. T. R. Ramana and Pappa were classmates in Thanjavur. T. R. Ramana was amid the making of Arunagirinathar when the music director G. Ramanathan fell ill. Pappa was called upon to complete the rest of the songs. T. R. Ramana again engaged Papa for his movies in the early 1970s. Tamil Isai Sangam conferred the title Isai Perarignar (Great Scholar of Music) on him.