Shriya Saran: Music School is about how music, dance are reduced to co-curricular activities in schools

Shriya Saran, the lead actress of this week’s Music School, smartly promoted the film on aha’s music reality show Telugu Indian Idol 2, which complemented the intent behind the story quite well. The film, produced under Yamini Films, directed by Paparao Biyyala had music by Ilaiyaraaja and released to impressive reception from critics and viewers.

“We’re very lucky to have had music by Ilaiyaraaja (sir), four songs from The Sound of Music have made it to the album too. It’s about how music and dance are reduced to co-curricular activities in school; for me it was my life. I am a music teacher and Sharman plays a drama teacher,” Shriya Saran said on the music reality show.

“The film is directed by Paparao Biyyala with a lot of passion, he’s an ex-IAS officer. Music School is about how students face the wrath from parents and are pressurised to not have a life beyond academics, forced to attend tuitions. Shriya Saran plays a music teacher from Goa and the film unfolds like a musical,” Yamini Rao, the film producer shared.

Shaan, Sharman Joshi, Gracy Goswami, Ozu Barua, Prakash Raj, Shaan, Benjamin Gilani, Suhasini Mulay, Bugs Bhargava, Leela Samson, Mona Ambegaonkar, Srikanth Iyengar ,Vinay Varma, Phani Eggone, Vaquar Shaikh, Karthikeya Chowdary Gadde, Vivan Jain Munoth, Olivia Charan, G Rohan Roy, Aadhya Panditharadhyula, Siddiksha and Kushee Soni played other key roles in the film.

Music School had cinematography by Kiran Deohans. Rajeev Nair was the art director while Manan Sagar was the editor. Filmed extensively in Hyderabad and Goa across multiple schedules, the musical released in three languages worldwide - Telugu, Tamil and Hindi. Aripirala Satyaprasad, Anantu Chintalapalli, K N Vijayakumar wrote the Telugu dialogues.