Did Illaiyaraaja belittle Lydian Nadhaswaram symphony ?

Did Illaiyaraaja discourage his disciple Lydian Nadhaswaram, from going ahead with his symphony ?. Lydian’s announcement came on a day Ilaiyaraaja created history by becoming the first Indian to present a western classical symphony. Ilaiyaraaja presented his symphony at the Eventim Apollo theatre in London on March 8. This announcement on a post on X and video was followed by a video byte from Illaiyaraaja in which he says that Lydian played the symphony to me and I told him that it sounds like and background score of a film. You learn about symphony and do it was the advice. Lydian is now 19 years old and next year he will be putting out his first symphony, ‘New Beginnings’. Lydian, who hails from Chennai, was just 17 years when appeared on The World's Best on CBS in the year 2019 and won, earning a prize money of a million dollars.

The youngster, who can play as many as 14 musical instruments including the drums, the tabla and the guitar, is known for his incredible piano playing skills. Illaiyaraaja video followed Lydian video in which he said – ““Whenever I go to his studio for music discussion, Raja sir has shared many things on music with me and would often speak about symphony. In fact, he has encouraged me also, saying, ‘You too will do a symphony.’ So, only because of his encouragement, now, I am coming up with my first symphony -Symphony Number 1, New Beginnings with four movements. And this is happening only because of his blessings. I wish he does many many more symphonies and gives us great music for many many more years,” . A heavy backlash followed with many slamming the 82 year Maestro ( title given by Kollywood to him after he put out a symphony with Royal Philharmonic orchestra and that never got released as he felt hurt at the remarks of music critics abroad). Cross checking the facts with Lydian , we learn that actually Raaja had said this when the disciple met him two years back and played him a piece of music that he thought was symphony. Raaja fater hearing it for a few seconds told him to stop and then told the advice that found it’s way to video. Lydian says that “if Uncle ( Raaja) wanted he could have said this is fine and misguided me. He is very honest in his opinion. His words then inspired me to take up doing symphony “. His plan is to do many symphonies and make a playlist and like we pick a movie song, in future we pick a symphony to hear. A well written article in Swarajya on the IsaiGnani ; https://swarajyamag.com/culture/ilaiyaraaja-a-life-of-syncopated-symphony