Going back to the golden era of Cinema music
Young musician Dinesh Subasinghe has surpassed all musicians in his generation and many other senior musicians in the country too. This multi-talented young man with an outstanding ability to play number of musical instruments perfectly became the winner of largest number of awards in the year 2016.The movie ‘Ho Gaana Pokuna’ being the pinnacle, Dinesh won five awards out of eight nominations he received at various film award ceremonies in 2016. He also won six awards including two awards at the 4th Derana Film Awards for best Original Score, most popular film song , Most Popular film song ‘Ho Gana Pokuna’ at the Hiru Golden Film Awards and Best Music Director award at Signis Salutation (OCIC) and Jury merit award at Sarasaviya film Festival.
Also Dinesh was nominated for one of the Ten Outstanding Young Persons (TOYP) and received the award in December. The TOYP award is given to young people who excel in their chosen fields a. The programme is sponsored by Junior Chamber International (JCI). Since 1980, JCI Sri Lanka has honored nearly 300 individuals from all around the country.
Dinesh Subasinghe received his first professional award in 2009 at the SIGNIS (OCIC) awards for his teledrama score for ‘Siri Sirimal’ which was telecast on Rupavahini. The award was received by his mother Miriam Subasinghe as Dinesh was undergoing training in India under world renown musician A.R. Rahuman.
From 2009 to 2017 Dinesh has won 10 awards for his teledramas, films scores and for his Buddhist Oratorio CD. Dinesh has won one Sumathi Award, special award in Buddhist film festival in 2011 by Light of Asia Foundation.
Dinesh first passion was playing violin and string instruments including guitar, banjo, mandolin, Ravanahatha and establish himself as an instrumentalist in recordings and concerts. He did this since 1995 but later in 2003 he moved to compose music as a professional music director for Sri Lankan TV and screen. Up to now Dinesh has composed music for 75 teledramas, 11 movies, 20 stage plays, 10 documentaries and directed music for nine tv radio musical series.
Dinesh with his 10 awards
Dinesh is the youngest composer to direct music for 75 teledrama in Sri Lanka and he is the only one who has won 10 awards for his creations at national level award ceremonies.
The year 2016 was also a phenomenal year for Dinesh as he toured eight countries including Australia, Ireland, Armenia, United States and Canada for his musical studies and researches. He has spend nearly one month in Armenia and participated a Armenian musical programme which was organised by Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU). At this programme Dinesh studied Armenian classical music under Bagarath Wardaniyan and a number of scholars in Komitas Musical Conservatory in Yerevan.
Dinesh has started collaborations with Armenian musicians and plans to bring Armenian musicians to Sri Lanka for a concert and a musical workshop for Sri Lankan musicians.
“Armenian music is important to the Asia and the world music. It has oldest instruments such as Kamancha which is closer to Ravanahatha and the one of the oldest flutes called Duduk. These instruments directly communicate to peoples’ minds and take them very deep in to their memories and emotions,” Dinesh said sharing the beauty of Armenian music.
Dinesh has started participating in Grammy award winner andworld famous violinist for American fiddling music, blues and Jazz, Mark O’connor’s O’Connor method programme in New York from 2015, and he has been performing American fiddle music with Sri Lankan expressions at the New York musical programme.
“The latest project I have taken up is composing music for Janaka Mallimarachi’s teledrama ‘Adara Dadayama’ and this is my 75th teledrama.” Dinesh said. Produced by Dr. Jagath Wijenayaka, teledrama is based on famous film ‘Dadayama’.
Dinesh had the rare privilege of being honoured by his alma mater Maris Stella College, Negombo. “That was an unforgettable incident for me as I recently participated in programmes in Negombo and St Peter’s College Colombo as a chief guest and a guest of honor. “Going to my own school as a guest of honour is one of the most
wonderful experinmce. I felt the
affection and the warmth we received from our school and it was like a film experince” Dinesh said with nostalgic memories about his school days.
Dinesh with Mark O’connor
The award winning musician in Armenia