| Kalyanji Virji Shah | |
| Background: | non_performing_personnel |
| Birth Date: | 1928 6, df=yes |
| Birth Place: | Kundrodi, Cutch State, British India |
| Death Place: | Mumbai, Maharashtra, India |
| Genre: | Film score |
| Occupation: | music director, orchestrator, conductor |
| Years Active: | 1954–2000 |
| Label: | Saregama HMV Universal Music |
| Past Member Of: | Kalyanji-Anandji |
Kalyanji Virji Shah (30 June 1928 - 24 August 2000) was the Kalyanji of the Kalyanji-Anandji duo. He and his brother Anandji Virji Shah have been famous Indian film musicians, and won the 1975 Filmfare Award for Best Music Director, for Kora Kagaz.[1] [2] He is a recipient of the civilian honour of Padma Shri (1992),[3] India's fourth-highest civilian honour.
Kalyanji was born to Virji Shah, a Kutchi businessman in Kundrodi, Kutch, Gujarat, who migrated from Kutch to Mumbai to start a Kirana (provision store). His younger brother and his wife are the husband and wife duo Babla & Kanchan.
He and his brothers began to learn music from a music teacher, who actually knew no music but taught them in lieu of paying his bills to their father. One of their four grand parents was a folk musician of some eminence. They spent most of their formative years in the hamlet of Girgaum (a district in Mumbai) amidst Marathi and Gujarati environs — some eminent musical talent resided in the vicinity.
Kalyanji's breakthrough was with the theme entitled Been music from the film Nagin (1954).[4]
See main article: Kalyanji–Anandji.
Kalyanji's son, Viju Shah, is also a music director based in India.