Introduction

Biography

A fourth-ge­ne­ra­tion Chris­tian, Ba­ra­thi is the son of E. Soun­da­ra­ra­jan (1932–1997), a Pres­by­te­ri­an pas­tor in Chen­nai for 47 years, and Ru­by Vi­ruth­am­bal, and hus­band of Eve­lyn Pris­cil­la Va­san­thi.

In 1986, he earned a Ba­che­lor of Arts in psy­cho­lo­gy (and passed Grade VIII Class­ic­al Gui­tar, Tri­ni­ty Col­lege Ex­ams at the Chen­nai Lo­cal Cen­ter). In 1989, he comp­let­ed a Ba­che­lor of Arts in Church Mu­sic from the As­ian In­sti­tute for Li­tur­gy and Mu­sic in Ma­ni­la, Phil­ip­pines.

By 1992 he was back in In­dia, where he mar­ried Ev­elyn; their first son Jas­per­raj was born while John was a mu­sic lec­tur­er in Na­ga­land. John was teach­ing mu­sic in the pub­lic schools when their daugh­ter Je­ni­ta was born in 1996.

In 2002, he earned a Mas­ter of Arts in Church Mu­sic from Tai­nan Theo­lo­gic­al Col­lege, Tai­wan. The same year he joined the Church of South In­dia (CSI) Sy­nod as the Co­or­di­na­tor for Church Mu­sic & Li­tur­gy, where he was work­ing as of 2019.

Barathi is pre­sent­ly en­gaged in a pro­ject to pro­duce a Com­mon Eng­lish Hym­nal for the CSI. A di­verse, mul­ti-cul­tur­al or­ga­ni­za­tion, the CSI has mul­ti­ling­ual and var­ied eth­nic con­gre­ga­tions spread ov­er al­most half of In­dia, plus glo­bal con­gre­ga­tions.

His Eng­lish trans­la­tions of more than 200 Chris­tian Ta­mil hymns, songs, orig­in­al cho­ral works, tran­scrip­tions and com­po­si­tions of dif­fer­ent ge­ne­ra can be found at free-scores.com.