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| Sunday, 25 January 2004 |
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Sri Lankan folk music lends extensively for creative composing, now a trend by musicians who wish to create music different from the norm. Sarath Wickrema an acknowledged musician has taken up the challenge of producing music based on Sri Lankan folk music, and has worked within this framework with Sri Lankan musicians and the Chennai String Orchestra.
'Thotilla' the opening track, is the conventional Sinhala lullaby which he has re-created into an easy flowing symphonic poem with the flute and strings carrying the melody to a kind of esoteric heights. S.P. Balasubramaniam the well known Tamil artiste sings an up beat Pookal Thodumpothu that leans on a pop music base. 'Raban' - the instrument is focused entirely after an instrumental introduction giving emphasis to the fact that the raban need not be considered on its way out in a developed music scene but could be used to make music that is arresting in the beats. The arrangements is as a symphonic poem. Visharada Nanda Malini sings an attractive 'Thana Thamedena' while the Hindi song 'Tum Jo Mili' is mellifluously interpreted by Sunanda who has an attractive lilt in her singing style. Further tracks are Bera, a drum exchange exercise based on time signature. Onchilla is another traditional folk tune worked into a symphonic poem keeping close to the rhythm of the swing moving up and down which could be ideally used for film scoring. Padma Sri Pandit Amaradeva is featured on the track Swaetha Warna - his eloquent singing style has always been an attraction with music lovers. Finally Gajaga, the vanama that gets an interesting arrangement quite different from the run-of-the mill mood. Lyrics for the songs have been credited to Prof. Sunil Ariyaratne, Ratna Sri Wijesinghe, Muthukumar and Raquib Alam. The CD was recorded and mixed at the AVM Recording Centre, Chennai and the distribution in Sri Lanka are Sawi Audio. |
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The CD titled Naada which he has released bears testimony to his
determination to be different and contains eight tracks which are
interesting and appealing. A musician who has scored for many teledramas,
films and also for other singers and musicians, Sarath Wickrema has used
the folk melodies to compose symphonic poems, taking his music on to a
higher level, with the clever use of beras, thammattamas, guitars, flutes,
udekki, tablas, horane.
