{"id":2509,"date":"2020-03-01T14:50:55","date_gmt":"2020-03-01T14:50:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/premasirikhemadasa.com\/?p=2509"},"modified":"2020-03-01T14:50:57","modified_gmt":"2020-03-01T14:50:57","slug":"master-thank-you-for-the-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/premasirikhemadasa.com\/?p=2509","title":{"rendered":"Master: Thank you for the music"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\u201cKhemadasa who has embedded his mark in \nseveral of his creations during the past five decades is from Talpitiya,\n Wadduwa and entered the portals of Colombo city in search of music, the\n type of music he was looking for in the city,\u201d Image: the Master in action<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

by Susitha R. Fernando

(January 27, Negombo, Sri Lanka Guardian)<\/strong>\n If Dr. Lester James Peries is the Father of Sri Lankan cinema, Dr. \nPremasiri Khemadasa should be named as the ‘Father’ of local film music.\n This in fact would be a fitting tribute to Premasiri Khemadasa better \nknown as ‘Master Khemadasa’ who turned 71 last Friday, January 25.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still\n very much active with making music for teledramas, films and even \n‘opera’ the one and only man who was dared experiment and create the \nworld renowned style of musical expression from this part of the world. \nSwimming against the tide at a time when film music meant, directly \ncopying Bollywood and South Indian film songs and tunes, Khemadasa \nintroduced a style of music for popular as well as artistic cinema.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Starting\n with Sirisena Wimalaweera \u2018Rodee Kella\u2019 his musical contribution to \nLester James Peiris` Golu Hadawatha was a turning point in cinematic \nmusic in the Sri Lankan music industry. Later his music in films like \nLester James Peiries’ “Nidhanaya”, “Kaliyugaya” and Dharmasena \nPathiraja’s “Bambaru Avith” acclaimed as landmarks in the history of \nlocal film music in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Khemadasa who has embedded his \nmark in several of his creations during the past five decades is from \nTalpitiya, Wadduwa and entered the portals of Colombo city in search of \nmusic, the type of music he was looking for in the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Born on \nJanuary 25, 1937 and had his education at Sri Sumangala Vidyalaya and \nSt. John`s College, Panadura. As a teenager, he became a gifted flutist.\n Khemadasa was asked to come to Radio Ceylon for an interview on the day\n he was scheduled to take his Senior School Certificate examination. He \nfinished the examination much ahead of time, jumped out of the school \nwall and travelled to the audition. He passed the audition and became a \nmember of Radio Ceylon. Apart from film music Dr. Khemadasa has composed\n music for teledramas, theatre. Further he is an artiste a musical \ninnovator a composer who had more than any other striven to extend the \nboundaries of Sri Lankan music explored the uncharted world of new \nsounds new rhythms under the name of ‘Symphonies’ and \u2018opera\u2019 words that\n were alien to Sri Lankan music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fusing the best of our folk \nheritage, Indian classical ragas and the Western musical tradition, he \ncomposed symphonies like ‘Muhuda’ and ‘Mage Kale Mavni’. He shot to fame\n with his ‘Manasawila’, opera. This followed with several other \nproductions such as ‘Doramandalawa’, ‘Sonduru Warnadasa’ and latest \nbeing ‘Agni’ (Fire), based on the legend of Prometheus, an Olympian god \nwho bequest human provided the spark to ignite knowledge, enlightenment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\n presence of operatic vocals in his music is explained by his vast \nknowledge of opera and Khemadasa is the only known Sri Lankan musician \nwho practises and creates opera. In his operas he has tried and \nsucceeded in capturing the meaning of the words using voice. The fact \nthat his operas are written in Sinhalese makes them unique. Khemadasa \nhas many students whom he uses in his operas and majority of them \nunearthed musical talents miles and miles away from the capital Colombo \nand trained and guided to the international standards by the Master.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\n has come a long way over at least five decades enriching theatre, \nballet, symphony and the Sinhala film industry from his humble \ncontribution. Not haiing studied music theories from traditional schools\n but experiment and experience, Master Khemadasa was bestowed the \ncoveted honorary doctorate (D.Litt) by the Ruhunu University for his \ncontribution to music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though lately Master fell ill, after a \nlong layoff following a kidney transplant he returned to create music \nfor the country. Even at the age of 71, he perseveres in his field as a \ngiant, trying to secure the future of Sri Lankan music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A straightforward man who never took anything for granted but worked hard in the field and kept his head high with what he believed musically or politically, we all say ‘Thankyou’ to the Master for those melodies and music. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

http:\/\/www.srilankaguardian.org\/2008\/01\/master-thank-you-for-music.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cKhemadasa who has embedded his mark in several of his creations during the past five decades is from Talpitiya, Wadduwa and entered the portals of Colombo city in search of music, the type of music he was looking for in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2357,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[40],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/premasirikhemadasa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2509"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/premasirikhemadasa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/premasirikhemadasa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/premasirikhemadasa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/premasirikhemadasa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2509"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/premasirikhemadasa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2510,"href":"http:\/\/premasirikhemadasa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2509\/revisions\/2510"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/premasirikhemadasa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/premasirikhemadasa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/premasirikhemadasa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/premasirikhemadasa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}