Gurukiran or Gurukiran Shetty is a music director of the Kannada film industry in India. He started his career as a music director of the Kannada movie A, directed and acted by Upendra. His music for his next movieUpendra further consolidated his position in Kannada movie industry. He is a native of Mangalore and his mother tongue is Tulu. He has also acted in several movies in side roles and also sung several songs. He is popular in Kannada cinema for his foot-tapping musical scores.
Initial years
He was a class singer even while at St Aloysius Primary School in the early 70s. After graduating in commerce from Mangalore University, Guru Kiran started performing in orchestras in and around Mangalore as a singer and a keyboard performer. He started off his musical career in 1994 as an assistant to the well known music director and lyricist V. Manohar.
Actor
Gurukiran wanted to be an actor before he made his name as a Music Director in Sandalwood. Guru's first film was "Badkonji Kabithe", a Tulu language film, which incidentally happens to be his mother tongue. The Tulu language belongs to the Dravidian family of languages, and is widely spoken in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts of Karnataka State and parts of Kasargod district of Kerala. Shanker Bekal was the cameraman of the film. "Nishkarsha," a film directed by Sunil Kumar Desai who is a well-respected name in the Kannada film industry, was the highlight of his acting career before he decided to concentrate on his first love—music.
Music director
He had a chance to be a music director in "A" directed by Upendra. Guru Kiran did his best, worked hard spent some sleepless nights to compose some fantastic songs for "A". Success of P. Vasu's Apthamitra which again reinforced the name of Guru Kiran in the music composition. Jogi released in 2005 was a mile stone in the career of Guru Kiran. The film's album audio sales before the release of the film is an all-time record in the Kannada film industry. This hit took him to Telugu Film Industry as music director for remake of same movie. He is also scoring music for Telugu movie Nagavalli, which is the remake of blockbuster Kannada movie Aptharakshaka. He has been involved in multiple music talent shows as a judge, including 2 seasons of Confident Star Singer on Asianet Suvarna. He has also been a guest judge on shows like Ede Tumbi Haduvenu on ETV Kannada.
Singer
He had sung many songs in Kannada films in his own composition as well as others."Kanasina Maratta" song sung by him, is a big hit in Banna Bannada Loka; Thomas Rathnam directed the music.
