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Kala Korner - by Dee Cee

A treat for the connoisseur
Way back in the late 1960s three Anandians walked into the Observer Editorial office:They were all 'A' level students. They had done a newspaper - a creative effort with short stories, poems and other creative material - and needed a little publicity.

The paper was titled 'Sevana'. I remember at least two of them. One was A.D. Ranjith Kumara, who later became a journalist and edited 'Sarasaviya', the cultural weekly. The other was Kularatne Ariyawansa, who had a flair for music and is today a renowned lyric writer. He has just released a package of three CDs comprising a collection of songs he had written over a period of three decades.

It is a pioneering venture. This is the first time that a 3CD pack has been released. Ariyawansa has had a tough task in selecting 66 songs out of nearly 500 he had written since 1973. The collection includes the first ever song he wrote - 'Aadarayen maa hada vata ethena latha' sung by Abyewardena Balasuriya. He had just got out of the Kelaniya University at the time having done an Arts degree.

It's hard to find a singer who has not sung Ariyawansa's compositions. It's a long list - from Pandit Amaradeva and Nanda Malini to Damayanthi Jayasuriya and son Nuwan Nayanajith. To leave anyone out was a big problem he faced when it came to the CDs. He had picked 40 male and female singers - the cream of the country's singing fraternity.

Titled ‘Pinibara Malak’ (a song sung by Victor Ratnayake), the collection is a rare treat for the connoisseur. At a time when worthless songs are being marketed in the guise of Sinhala music, Ariyawansa's effort is most praiseworthy. Here is an opportunity for those who appreciate good music to have a product which boasts of meaningful words, pleasing music and lilting voices. Music has been directed by the foremost musicians in the country including Premasiri Khemadasa, Rohana Weerasinghe, Sarath Dassanayaka, Sarath Alwis and many more - 14 in all.

Ariyawansa is sad that he had not been able to include some of the songs he would have liked to put into his collection. "Some of the early radio songs are in a bad state. Some of the film songs had never been recorded on disc. Certain others have been distorted and had got destroyed in the process," he laments. Yet he should be happy that most of them were available for his pioneering venture.

Will his CDs sell, I asked him. "Not in their numbers like the ones heard in buses, vans and three-wheelers - or for that matter, even in some of the radio and TV channels", he admitted. Yet he would be happy if the discerning listener appreciates them.

“I thought Kule will end up a singer. He was the best singer at Ananda during our time,” his friend Ranjith Kumara recollects. Instead he moved over to lyric writing and has done pretty well. By managing the Singlanka outfit at Nugegoda, he has contributed much towards lifting the quality of Sinhala music.

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