Vani Jairam

Vani Jairam
Vani Jairam in 2015
Background information
Birth name	Kalaivani
Born	(1945-11-30) 30 November 1945 (age 71) Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India
Occupation(s)	Playback singer
Instruments	Vocals
Years active	1971 – current
Website	Official website

Vani Jairam (born as Kalaivani on 30 November 1945), also credited as Vani Jayaram, also fondly called as Meera of modern India, is an Indian singer. She is best known as a playback singer in South Indian cinema. Vani's career started in 1971 and has spanned over four decades. She has done playback for over thousand Indian movies recording over 10,000 songs. In addition, she has recorded thousands of devotionals and private albums and also participated in numerous solo concerts in India and abroad.

Renowned for her vocal range and easy adaptability to any difficult composition, Vani has often been the choice for several composers across India through 1970's until late 1990's. Apart from Hindi, she has sung in several Indian languages, such as Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Marathi, Odia, Gujarati and Bengali languages.

Vani won the National Film Awards for Best Female Playback Singer three times and also has won State Government awards from the states of Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat. In 2012, she was honored with the Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award – South for her achievements in South Indian film music.In July 2017 she will be honored with the Best Female Singer at the NAFA 2017 event at New York City.

Vani Jairam was born as Kalaivani in Vellore in Tamil Nadu, in a family of classically trained musicians as a fifth daughter in a family of six daughters and three sons. Her mother Padmavathi, trained under Ranga Ramunaja Iyengar, enrolled her into his classes where he taught her a few Muthuswami Dikshitar kritis. Later she was given a formal Carnatic training under the guidance of Cuddalore Srinivas Iyengar, T. R. Balasubramanian and R. S. Mani. Vani was glued to the Radio Ceylon channel and was attracted towards Hindi film songs to the extent that she used to memorize and reproduce the entire orchestration of the songs that used to repeatedly play on the Radio. At the age of 8, she gave her first public performance at the All India Radio, Madras. Post her studies, Vani was employed with the State Bank of India, Madras and later in 1967, she was transferred to the Hyderabad branch.