Sunaad Gowtham, the man behind the famous Jothe Jotheyalli title track

Music composer Sunaad Gowtham, 27, is a well-known name in TV and Cinema circles with his compositions for commercials, serials, and films. His recent work, the title track of the Kannada serial Jothe Jotheyalli starring Aniruddha Jatkar won Best Title Track even in Telugu.

Sunaad who hails from Karkala in the Udupi district set up a home studio at the age of 17. Sunaad grew up listening to his father, who is well versed in Carnatic music, gathered an interest for the same. Initially, he began composing devotional songs at the young age of seven and eventually ventured into other genres.

He dropped out of college to pursue his passion for music and filmmaking. His songs are quite popular in every household in Karnataka. To date, he has composed music for more than 200 songs, from title tracks for famous serials like Jothe Jotheyalli, GiniRama, Yaarivalu, Neeyum Njanum, to composing songs for Tulu and Kannada movies.

Sunaad is also an accomplished cinematographer who has worked for Tulu, Konkani and Kannada movies. He further is venturing into directing movies.

Sunaad didn’t go to schools to learn about the technicalities, he says music and filmmaking is his passion. Dropping out of college, especially coming from a family of lecturers, was quite a hurdle but my father was supportive of my choice, he revealed.

“I am a self-learned artist and it was all trial and error and most of the knowledge was through YouTube. If you have the talent and believe in your skills, I say go ahead and follow your passion. Internet is full of resources and one can find tons of content on YouTube to enhance their skill,” he says.

Sunaad revealed that he is currently working on a project starring the lead actors of Dia.

Speaking about his dream, Sunaad asserted, “My dream is to make music and complete post-production at my studio here in Karkala, even today I work from Karkala and haven’t moved anywhere else.”

At a young age, Sunaad’s accomplishments have no bounds. According to him, “Cinematography and composing music use different science but as I am aware of both the fields I already have a music set for certain mood or scenes and that becomes easy.”

Sunaad says that if you love what you are doing, you won’t feel pressured and it will all come to you.

Lastly, “Popular notion that art makes you famous is not right as every artist only yearns to be the best at what he is doing so I’d like everyone else to keep that in mind, to be the best at whatever you are doing.”