B. R. Chaya Indian Singer Born 1967 in Bengaluru

Early life

Bengaluru Ramamurthy Chaya, who performs as B. R. Chaya, is an Indian singer from Karnataka. Records give her birth date as 1 January 1967 and her birthplace as Bengaluru. Music took hold of her attention in childhood, and she gained a reputation among those around her for how much she knew about it.

Her first working life was not in music. After completing a course in horology at RV College, she spent several years as a watch mechanic at HMT. Singing remained part of her life during that period, and she went on to represent Karnataka in a national singing competition organised by Doordarshan in Madras. That appearance helped open the way into film playback work.

Career

Chaya made her film debut in the Tamil picture Jothi, released in 1983. Her first Kannada film followed a year later, when she sang for Puttanna Kanagal's Amrutha Ghalige in 1984. Before that Kannada break, the composer Ilaiyaraaja had noticed her and given her a number of songs for his Tamil and Telugu films. The Kannada assignment, recorded under the music director Vijaya Bhaskar, produced the song "Hindustanavu Endoo Mareyada", which brought her immediate attention. She names Vijaya Bhaskar as her guru.

After that start she kept working in Kannada films and also recorded hundreds of songs for private albums. She sang duets with several senior male vocalists of the period, among them M. Balamurali Krishna, P. B. Sreenivas, K. J. Yesudas and S. P. Balasubrahmanyam. Her list of composers includes Rajan-Nagendra, Vijaya Bhaskar, Upendra Kumar, M. Ranga Rao, Hamsalekha, V. Manohar, C. Ashwath and H. K. Narayan.

Her repertoire is broad. She has sung pop, folk and devotional material as well as bhavageethe, the light-music form that is also called Sugama Sangeetha, and she is counted as one of the popular voices of that tradition in Karnataka. In total she has more than 10,000 songs to her name, across film soundtracks, albums and stage performances.

In later years she toured widely on the invitation of Kannada associations. Her concerts have taken her to many major cities in the United States and to Australia, New Zealand, Bahrain, Dubai and Singapore. She has also appeared as a judge on the programme Gaana Chandana and continues to perform in concerts internationally. She runs a presence on YouTube, where her channel had 85.1 thousand subscribers as of February 2025.

Recognition

Chaya won the Karnataka State Film Award for Best Female Playback Singer in 1988 for the song "Ruthumana samputadi" from the film Kaadina Benki. She was the first singer to receive that particular state award. She won it a second time in 1995 for "Ibbani tabbida ileyali", sung for the film Rashmi.

In 2010 the Government of Karnataka gave her the Rajyotsava Prashasti. Together, the two film awards and the state honour form the main part of her recorded recognition.

Public roles

Beyond recording, Chaya is active as a stage performer and as a television judge. Her work as a judge on Gaana Chandana puts her in a position of assessing younger singers, while her long record of concert tours abroad has made her a regular presence at cultural events organised by Kannada communities outside India.