Nivas K. Prasanna

Born and brought up in Tirunelveli, India, in South Tamil Nadu, Nivas began learning Carnatic music at age ten and completed all seven grades of piano while studying at Magdalene Matriculation Higher Secondary School in the town. He then moved to Chennai with his family, enrolled in the Visual Communications course at SRM Institute of Science and Technology, and began actively seeking opportunities in the film music industry.^[1]

Nivas was chosen by Rajesh Vaidhya to accompany him on tours as a keyboard player, and the opportunity gave him the chance to network with other young professionals and work on the music for short films. He also worked with singer Saindhavi on creating a musical album titled Kannamma about the teachings of Bharathiyar, which impressed producer Santhosh from Think Music.^[1] Santhosh then recommended him to score the music for Pizza II: Villa (2013), but Nivas was eventually not selected. Santhosh later offered Nivas to work on the murder mystery film, Thegidi (2014), directed by Ramesh, and the venture became Nivas's first project.^[1] Thegidi won positive reviews for its music, and the film's success at the box office meant that Nivas K. Prasanna received attention for his work. For the album, he worked alongside singers including Shankar Mahadevan, Andrea Jeremiah, and Abhay Jodhpurkar.^[2][3][4] It also won him the Behindwoods Gold Award for Find of the Year, and the composer performed at the awards ceremony.^[5]

His second album, Sethupathi (2016), received mixed reviews with a review from The Hindu stating it was a "cop-out".^[6] It is reported that Nivas has been signed to score the music for Kumki-2 sequel of Kumki.^[7][8][9]