'Music is for all'

by Husna Inayathullah

The children's music festival titled 'Music is for all', a sister event of the Galle Music Festival was held on March 14 at the Martin Wickremasinghe Folk Museum at Koggala.

The organisers Kaushalya Navaratne Pereira, Director Program of Seva Lanka Foundation, Dagny Mjos, Counsellor of the Royal Norwegian Embassy and Kalasoori Arunthathy Sri Ranganathan, Artistic Director, Aru Sri Art Theatre were present at the Festival.

The Festival incorporated a separate component for school children specially studying Performing Arts in the Southern region.

The events were held in different places at the same time. Children learnt different forms of music. Students as well as artistes got the opportunity to share their knowledge and views.

A student from the South said that she got the opportunity to participate and experience different types of music.

"It is really fun and we rarely get an opportunity to participate in such an event, " she said.

Sahan Ranwala, son of the late Lionel Ranwala, world renowned singer, said that children were given a knowledge of different types of local and international music apart from the school curriculum.

Students from Grade Eight to Grade 13 who study specific fields of Arts were given an opportunity to participate in dance workshops with upcountry, low country and Sabaragamuwa dance gurus, drumming workshops with Nadro, music workshops with music matters and vocal training with Ten Sing were held.

Students were selected by their subject teachers.

They took part in participatory music workshops in which they watched and learned along with the artistes.

Students from Grade six to grade 11 took part in items such as Aadivasan, Kaffiers, lyric writing and poetry, Muslim traditional group, Nathaswaram and Traditional Tamil drumming, puppets, traditional folk singing, traditional koothu, dubbing workshop and art workshop.

Advanced Level students participated in sound engineering, music composing and videograghy workshops. Music groups from Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Norway and Palestine performed on stage. a positive change in children's mind and also the festival atmosphere was created through activities such as magic, face painting, mimicking and karaoke.

The art exhibition gave an opportunity to students to draw and exhibit their paintings.

Sumana Jayathilake was rewarded for her services to the children of Sri Lanka.