Jayasri at European Summer Fest

By Sanath Weerasuriya

The second wide screen venture for popular band Jayasri will be out in Europe soon. An international film named 'Machan' directed Oscar nominated Italian Director Uberto Pasolini is to be released this summer worldwide. 'Machan' is revolved around the real life story of Sri Lanka Handball Team's one way ticket to Germany for good, during the Handball World Championship Cup.

This production is a collaboration of Italy, Germany and Sri Lanka and Director Uberto Pasolini produced the film along with Prasanna Vithanage . Film score done by our own Lakshman Joseph de Saram has taken six of Jayasri songs to feature in this film.

‘This is a great opportunity for us in film music category and we are very thankful to them’ said leader Rohitha, when he met TV Times last week in Colombo. Rohitha and Roshan of popular band Jayasri were in Sri Lanka during the Avurudu season for a short stint. Jayasri is a popular Sri Lankan band based in Vienna, Austria.

The brothers Rohitha and Roshan, the live wire of the band, were in town for special Avurudu recording with Sirasa and they have performed a couple of gigs organized by Sirasa TV.

The boys are now back in Vienna with their lineup and according to them the band is busy finalizing their acts for the coming summer festivals around Europe. ‘The summer season is ahead and we are trying to get busy here as lots of Festivals are planned for our Jayasri 'Saamaya-Peace Tour’ said Rohitha.

The band spent more time in their rehearsal room in Vienna during the past months preparing, arranging new programme for the coming season.‘We will be having more songs from the new album Saamaya-Peace and also new arrangements as well’ he added.

Jayasri will be touring Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Germany and France during the height of summer in July and August and their Canada and USA visit will kick start next week.‘The Italy tour will cover most of the Italian cities. Also we have planned to go with SriTV-Italy, a popular Sri Lankan television based in Italy. They will cover most of our shows in Italy and Greece’ Rohitha explained.

The band will perform at top Summer Festivals around the Mediterranean throughout till August with some stops in Greece and Cyprus with some of the top guest artistes in Europe. The biggest highlight in European Festivals will be Rototom Sunsplash Reggae Festival in Udine, Italy, with all Jamaican big reggae artistes such as Ziggy Marley, Sean Paul, Third World and Burning Spear and other top reggae bands.

‘This is the biggest reggae event in Europe for 10 days' he added. Multi Cultural Festival LENT in Maribo, Slovenia, which draws half a million people for 12 days, 400 Performances along the river Drava with international artistes as B B King, James Brown, Marcio Parker, Living Color will be the other top festival for Jayasri.

‘Fest der Begegnung' Cultural festival in St. Polten, 'Afrika Festival' in August in Vienna's Danube island are in the list of Jayasri for this summer. ‘All these events will give us a great opportunity to be there to show our Sri Lankan identity as JAYASRI, exposing our selves among the top names in the international music business he said.

‘Our good friend, Reggaeman Prageeth Perera from Napoli will also join for some of our concerts with his originals, which are quite popular in Italy’ he said. In May, the band will leave for North American tour to Canada and USA combining with some popular Club gigs and Concerts organized by Entertainment Unlimited in Toronto.

‘Some Concerts are in aid of the Needy in Sri Lanka. We are happy to present our own, unique Jayasri Vibration at all these places, where foreigners too are expected to attend the concert with our Sri Lankan fans' he said.

The other film ventures of the boys are 'Pitasakwala Kumarayai', 'Pancho Hathai' to be released in Sri Lanka soon The song 'Piyamanne - Siyumali' from their first album with new lyrics written by Maestro Ajantha Ranasinghe was taken for the children’s film 'Pitasakwala Kumaraya' and 'Pancho Hathai'.

Also we will be working with Director BooDee´s new film with some new songs with a different touch now in production' Jayalath said. TV Times readers can have more info on Jayasri by logging on to www.jayasrimusic.com www.jayasri.itgo.com or www.myspace.com/jayasrimusic