National Film Award for Best Music Direction
| National Film Award for Best Music Direction | |
|---|---|
| Awarded by Directorate of Film Festivals | |
| Type | National |
| Category | Indian Cinema |
| Description | |
| Description | Best Music Direction and background score for a feature film of the year |
| Medal | Rajat Kamal (Silver Lotus) |
| Statistics | |
| Instituted | 1967 (Songs) 1994 (Background Score) |
| First awarded | 1967 (Songs) 1994 (Background Score) |
| Last awarded | 2015 |
| Total awarded | 49 (Songs) 8 (Background Score) |
| Cash award | ₹50,000 (US$740) |
| First awardee(s) | K. V. Mahadevan |
| Recent awardee(s) | • M. Jayachandran (Songs) • Ilaiyaraaja (Background Score) |
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 awards—including award for Best Background score—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), Telugu (7 awards), Malayalam (7 awards), Tamil (6 awards), Bengali (6 awards), Kannada (4 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 musicians—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 languages—Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam—while Rahman won the award for performing in two different languages—Tamil and Hindi—including one for his debut film Roja (1992).
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