We are fortunate that there is at least one person to continue the Sunil Santha tradition in Sinhala music. Ivor Dennis is whom I would prefer to call Sunil Santha’s ‘genuine golaya’. For the past sixty years he has maintained his identity as a ‘pure bred’ Sinhala musician totally devoid of the latter-day fads. We [...]

The Sundaytimes Sri Lanka

Ivor Dennis to be feted at ‘Kurulu paradeesaye’

Kala Korner
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We are fortunate that there is at least one person to continue the Sunil Santha tradition in Sinhala music. Ivor Dennis is whom I would prefer to call Sunil Santha’s ‘genuine golaya’. For the past sixty years he has maintained his identity as a ‘pure bred’ Sinhala musician totally devoid of the latter-day fads. We continue to hear Sunil Santha through Ivor’s voice. In addition, his own creations are a treat.

Ivor shuns publicity and hardly appears in musical shows. He does not believe in churning out CDs or audio cassettes. (A CD containing 15 of Ivor’s new creations had been released five years ago by a group who organised an event to mark his 75th birthday.) In short, he “minds his own business”, just like his ‘guru’.

With much coaxing, he has agreed to attend a felicitation ceremony to mark his 80th year and 60 years in the music scene. Sunil Santha’s second son Lanka and the Sunil Santha Samajaya are organising this well-deserved tribute to Ivor on Wednesday, November 28 at 6 p.m. at the BMICH.

Ivor will sing Sunil Santha’s and his own numbers. T.M. Jayaratne, Nalini Ranasinghe, Edward Jayakody, Nelu Adhikari, Darshana Pramod Nissanka and Leslie Fernando and others will also perform as a tribute to Ivor. Ivor’s grand-daughter Amali Devmini too will be amongst the guest artistes. The music director will be Navaratne Gamage while Bandara Eheliyagoda will compere the show.

The show is titled ‘Kurulu paradeesaye’ – the first song Ivor sang way back in 1952. That was when his ‘guru’ felt Ivor was good enough to sing on his own and composed this song for him. The words were by Thilaka Sudharman de Silva, also a pupil of Sunil Santha who was attached to state radio and had an untimely death.

Looking back at Ivor’s career, I remember him relating how he met the great master. “In an amateur programme over the radio, I had sung a Sunil Santha number. It was ‘Varen heen sere ridi valaave’. He had heard it and wanted to meet me. Musician Patrick Denipitiya had told him he knew me. He was requested to bring me along. That was how I met him”.

Thereafter Ivor learnt music from Sunil Santha. He gained confidence after his solo effort and when Sunil Santha was doing the music score for Lester James Peries’ ‘Rekawa’ it was Ivor who went to India for the recordings. He was the playback singer for Shesha Palihakkara singing the ‘viridu’ for the stilt walker. That was his maiden film song. Singing a not so well known song in ‘Hima Kathara’ (Premasiri Khemadasa directed the music) Ivor became famous as a playback singer.

Ivor was in every single chorus that Sunil Santha had. He remembers many others – Victor Ratnayake, Narada Disasekera, Rohitha Wijesuriya, Amitha Wedisinghe, Nalini Ranasinghe amongst them.

The loyal pupil he was, Ivor never deserted Sunil even when times were pretty hard for the ‘guru’.
I remember how when Sunil Santha had moved out of the music scene completely, Lake House colleague S.Subasinghe and I went to see him in a bid to get him to sing at the Sarasaviya Film Festival.

He flatly refused. We didn’t give up. We kept on cajoling him. Finally he said “I will come if Ivor is willing to come”. We had cleared one hurdle – the major one. Then we tackled Ivor and told him that this was one opportunity to get the master out of the rut. Ivor agreed and we got both down to Ladies College well in time for the show. If I remember right, Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake was the chief guest. It was a pleasant surprise to everyone to see Sunil Santha back on stage – even for a few minutes. That was way back in 1968.

Later on maestro Khemadasa virtually couldn’t do without Ivor. A colleague, T.M. Jayaratne (they were both music teachers) introduced Ivor to Khemadasa and he found Ivor to be an asset. Ivor enjoyed the challenging chorus singing he did for Khemadasa’s films, dramas and operas. From Ranjit Dharmakeerthi’s drama ‘Angaara ganga gala basi’ to Dharmasena Pathiraja’s film ‘Ahas Gavuwa’ (the much talked about song ‘Udumbara’) Ivor demonstrated the master’s brilliance.

Ivor leads a quiet life at Seeduwa and will make one of his rare visits to the city on the 28th for the felicitation ceremony.

It’s still not too late for the organisers to get Ivor to record Sunil Santha’s numbers and release a DVD or a CD for posterity.

As Ivor ‘hits’ 80 let me say Chirang Jayatu!




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