Veteran actress and singer Rao Balasaraswati, thought of as the primary playback singer in Telugu cinema, handed away at her residence attributable to age-related illnesses in Hyderabad on Wednesday (October 15, 2025). She was 97 years previous.
Rao Balasaraswati made her debut as younger as six years of age and sang greater than 2,000 songs in Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Hindi, working alongside legendary music administrators like S. Rajeswara Rao, C.R. Subburaman, Okay.V. Mahadevan, Susarla Dakshinamurthi, Ramesh Naidu, and Viswanathan–Ramamoorthy. She additionally has the excellence for being the primary ‘light music’ singer on All India Radio.
Balasaraswati was additionally an actress in Telugu and Tamil movies in the course of the Thirties and Nineteen Forties, balancing her appearing and singing careers, earlier than absolutely confining herself to music.
Condolences poured in from throughout the Telugu-speaking States. Telangana Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy mentioned Rao Balasaraswati’s loss of life was “an irreplaceable loss to the film industry,” lauding her as the primary playback singer within the South who launched classical music to Telugu cinema.
Andhra Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan remembered her as a first-generation singer and actress who made her voice heard throughout generations and earned a particular place in classical and lightweight music.
