Kumudini Hettiarachchi

opment of a syllabus which structures a year’s programme is of vital importance. Sharing the same music, whatever the country one is from, is incredibly powerful. He does not want to impose music from one country on another. This is why there is a selection of music from across the world, says Joe, giving the example of a performance called ‘Monsoon’ in September in India, where water-themed folk songs were sung in Swahili, English, Spanish and Hindi.

“Linguistically it was great,” according to him and with information packs being distributed to the children, they also learn a little geography, widening their horizons.

As the song choice is very important, the same will apply to Sri Lanka, with Joe looking for local traditional songs to incorporate in the children’s repertoire.

There is no rigid academic environment, says Joe, adding that music defies reasoning and opens out our minds to the outer world.

The popular ‘Landune’ sung by Amarasiri Peiris to music composed by the ‘Master’ Premasiri Khemadasa, in fact, was a turning point in his musical career. Most of us took note of him after this song. He sang it well and the melody was beautiful. Now Pradeep Ratnayake gives this song new life with his sitar rendition in his latest CD titled ‘Landune – Songs of Premasiri Khemadasa on Pradeep Ratnayake’s sitar’.

‘Landune’ – is another effort by Pradeep in his ‘Tribute to the Masters Series’ which he launched with ‘Meeambavanaye’ – the melodies of C.T. Fernando on the sitar.

Pradeep had picked 16 songs including quite a number from films which have become favourites over the years.

These have been sung by numerous playback singers starting with Haroon Lantra who sang ‘Sulang Kurullo’. Among the other numbers are ‘Seeta re yaame ’and Dedunnenena’ (Sanath Nandasiri), ‘Ada Pamanak’ & ‘Ammavarune’ (Nanda Malini), ‘Hantanekandu’, ‘Sandasandahoren’,’Kanyavi’’, Vikasitapem’, (Amaradeva), ‘Maapraarthana’ & ‘Aadara mal pavane’ (H.R. Jothipala), ‘Me ayurin’ (T. M .Jayratne) and ‘Lokejeevathvannata’ (Clarence Wijewardena).

Pradeep says that while he has tried to use the same scale as the singers, he has changed the arrangements in a few songs.

We had not heard much about Pradeep in recent months after he delivered an outstanding score in the film ‘Sri Sidddhartha Gautama’ . In addition to his academic work at Sri Jayewardenapura University he had been busy with a team from Japan holding workshops in the outstations. Sponsored by the Japan Foundation, an institution promoting arts and cultural exchanges, these were mainly to try out improvisation. Pradeep is more than happy with the encouraging response from music enthusiasts in Jaffna and Batticaloa. In fact, the Randooga (that’s the title of the programme) concert held in the Jaffna University is featured on YouTube. The audience as well as the participants from Jaffna were most appreciative of Pradeep’s sitar recitals.

Pradeep has been invited by the Foundation for a ten-day symposium in Japan next month.

Looking back a few years, in his effort to popularise Sinhala music on the sitar, Pradeep released ‘Sitar Gee Raava’ with a set of popular numbers of the past. These included the compositions by Ananda Samarakoon (‘Asemadhura’, ‘Sirisarunsaarakethe, Besaseethalagangule’, ‘Endadamenike’ & ‘Manna ranjna’), Mohamed Ghouse (‘Shanta me raatriye’), P. L. A. Somapala (‘Lalithakala’), B.S. Perera (‘Shanta me re yaame’ & ‘Dura penenathanitala’), Amaradeva (‘Athakandukara’), and the eternal favourites ‘ Siri Buddhagaya’ & ‘Muni nandanasiri’ and the Vessantaramurti song ‘Mage Madridevi’ composed by John de Silva, the big name of the Tower Hall era.