The National Film Award for Best Music Direction (the Silver Lotus Award) is an honour presented annually at the National Film Awards by the Directorate of Film Festivals to a musician who has composed the best score for films produced within the Indian film industry. The award was first introduced at the 15th National Film Awards in 1967. At the 42nd National Film Awards, an award for "Best Background Score" was instituted. It was however discontinued after that, and it was not until 2009 that the category was re-introduced. Throughout the past 46 years the government of India has presented a total of 53 awardsâ€"including award for Best Background scoreâ€"to 40 different composers.
Although the Indian film industry produces films in around 20 languages and dialects, the recipients of the award include those who have worked in seven major languages: Hindi (17 awards), Malayalam (7 awards), Telugu (7 awards), Tamil (6 awards), Bengali (6 awards), Kannada (5 awards) and Marathi (2 awards).
The first recipient of the award was K. V. Mahadevan who was honoured for his composition in the Tamil film Kandan Karunai (1967). Ilaiyaraaja has been the most frequent winner with five wins, followed by A. R. Rahman with four awards. Jaidev and Vishal Bhardwaj have won it three times each. Four musiciansâ€"B. V. Karanth, K.V. Mahadevan, Satyajit Ray and Johnson have won the award twice each. Ilaiyaraaja is the only composer to have won the award for working in three different languagesâ€"Telugu, Tamil and Malayalamâ€"while Rahman won the award for performing in two different languagesâ€"Tamil and Hindiâ€"including one for his debut film Roja (1992).
Johnson won the inaugural "Best Background Score" awardâ€"for Sukruthamâ€"in 1994. When the award was reinstated in 2009, Ilaiyaraaja won it for the Malayalam film Pazhassi Raja. The most recent recipient is Bapu Padmanabha jointly awarded for Best Score and Background Score for his work in the Kannada historical musical drama Allama.
Winners
Notes
References
External links
- Official Page for Directorate of Film Festivals, India
- National Film Awards Archives
