The First Super Sri Lankan Music

Sunil Santha show- ‘Lanka Lanka’ Reliving founder of our own music

anka Lanka’, a tribute show to remember the 98th birth anniversary of ‘founder and pioneer of Sri Lankan music’ Sunil Santha will be held on October 5 at 6 pm at Musaeus College Auditorium.

Sunil Santha’s most favoured disciple who also possessed his own voice- Ivor Dennis and a large number of versatile singers like Victor Ratnayake, Sunil Edirisinghe, T. M. Jayaratne, Edward Jayakody, Deepika Priyadarshani and Christopher Paul and two young singers Dharshana Promod and Devmini Fernando, the granddaughter of Ivor Dennis will render their voices for more than twenty songs lined up for the show. The music for ‘Lanka Lanka’ is handled by Rohana Weerasinghe while Channa Wijewardena designs the choreography. Organised by Sunil Santha Samajaya, the script for the show is prepared by Pusphakara Wanniarachchi and compered by Indrasiri Suraweera.

Vijith Kumara Senaratne, secretary of Sunil Santha Samajaya said that undoubtedly the ‘father of Sri Lankan music’ is Sunil Santha as he strongly believed creating an original Sri Lankan music style which is completely different from North or South Indian music. He attempted to do this despite his own education and qualification in Hindustani music. “He stood for his conviction and because of this he had to make a lot of sacrifices including leaving music and singing in 1952 . This is because he objected that a audition being conuducted to categorise Sri Lankan singers by an Indian. This was despite Sunil being highly qualified from College of Hindustani Music in Lacknow from where he excelled in both ‘Vadya Visharad’ and vocal obtaining ‘First Division’, the only Sri Lankan to achieve such a feat. Both these certificates were given by principal of Marris College of Hindustani Music of Lucknow, S. N. Ratanjankar who had been invited to Sri Lanka by then authorities to conduct an audition and catogorise voices of Sri Lankan singers.