The Kolomthota Cultural Foundation was launched in 2004 by a few enthusiasts who saw a need for a dedicated platform for a myriad social service tasks. Today, it has a core group of about 50 members who organise musical concerts, seminars, and educational workshops to raise money for worthy causes.
As its president Hemantha Weerakoon puts it: “There is a crying need at many levels of society for knowledge and physical help in sectors as diverse as health and social welfare. If another social welfare organization asks us to help, we’ll look into the matter and raise funds for them. But we are keen on aesthetic development, too, and our ‘Thun Sith Gi’ concert is a means of raising funds for a worthy cause through a quality offering to the public.”
The proceeds of this concert, which was held last week at the Bishops College auditorium, will go in aid of flood victims. It brought together three veteran singers – Edward Jayakody, Nirosha Virajini and Bandara Athauda – for a superb recapitulation of their musical highlights in careers going back to the 1980s and beyond. Backed by the Band Nada, with drummer, bass guitar, lead and rhythm (two semi-acoustic classical guitars), violin, keyboards, flute and saxophone, was excellent.
Edward Jayakody, as chatty and amiable as ever, recalled how he spent almost a decade 
hanging round the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation before getting his singing break. His superbly trained voice has the ability to sound delightfully casual even when exploring serious subjects, and this is his greatest asset along with his ability to compose music, resulting in a hugely popular song repertoire which only seem to improve with age.
“Kerekena Rode Punchi Karaththe” is one of those memorable hits. Its theme is serious; it’s about a poor man on a hand cart pushed by his son. It was written by Cyril Samarakone, a SLTB bus conductor working in Anuradhapura, and posted to the SLBC. Luckily it was spotted by Edward Jayakody, who asked Kalani Perera to set the words to music.
Even in this serious mood, the singer’s voice is full of optimism. It’s his hallmark. He could be described as the great lyric poet, musically speaking, of his generation. Temperamentally, Edward Jayakody remains evergreen despite advancing age, because he’s by nature an optimist who sees beauty, and something worthwhile, in almost everything, and tries to elevate it to the level of art. He usually succeeds. His blend of soothing voice, poetic imagery, vivid musical texture and ‘it’s going to be all right with the world’ kind of sentiment is unique even among the galaxy of quality singers who made their mark in the 1970s and 1980s.
His number two song in the concert was ‘Mini Mini Poda Vetewi” written by Ratna Sri Wijesinghe, and this was followed by “Wasanthaye Api Hamuwemu Sonduriya”, surely one of the most moving love ballads in the history of Sinhala sarala gi. The lovers’ usual misgivings are dispelled by their faith in the future and an unflinching romanticism.
“Epa Sande Obe Sina Me Reye” is exuberant and lyrical in the same positive mood. It addresses love in general terms, and says it all with an economy (in three short quatrains) which recalls the best of 19th century romantic lyric poetry. These are songs which should be studied by new generation song writers and singers who have taken over the mushrooming FM channels. Unfortunately, no such attempts seem to be made. Even a good cover of a song such as this would be a step in the right direction. But even that seems to be beyond them. Edward Jayakody has no imitators because he’s in a class of his own.
The lovers’ usual misgivings are dispelled by their faith in the future and an unflinching romanticism
Bandara Athauda looks, and sounds, serious – going a shade darker than Karunaratne Divulgane but stopping just short of the melancholy of a Gunadasa Kapuge. Melodically, he belongs in that group, with ties to predecessors such as Narada Dissasekara. Even his lighter attempts such as Ruwan Tharaka, which isn’t a lament but a celebration of love, leaves you a little anxious as to what might come next. The singer’s emphatic and slow rendering of each syllable in the lyrics, so regular in its meter, makes this anxiety inevitable. His style is in stark contrast to the inherent buoyance of Edward Jayakody.
Nirosha Virajini is a high-octave singer, and her ever recurring forays into the higher octaves look effortless. In this, her tradition goes back to Rukmani Devi, Latha Walpola, Angelene Gunathilake, Neela Wickremasinghe and Indrani Perera. But tonally she is closer to Sujatha Aththanayake than to any of them. Nirosha’s tonal range is impressive, and she is quite at home with those frequent vocal tremolos which show that classical singing is her forte. Unfortunately, just as it was for Sujatha, and unlike in India, Sri Lanka has no careers for classical singers. They must compromise with the popular song (pop or sarala gi) to make a living.
But Nirosha Virajini differs from any of these predecessors in her musical style. Though classically trained in the eastern style (she was named as a super-grade singer in Tamil by an Indian and Australian panel for the SLBC, and can sing in six languages), she sounds very often like a blues singer. Like Edward Jayakody, she’s talented in music composition, and it can’t be any accident that many of her songs have a jazzy feel. When that saxophone comes on in her song ‘Sina wenna mata lowata penennata’, we are carried to another musical sphere away from the familiar Sinhala sarala gi format. As Kasun Kalhara once remarked, the era when one consciously forged a national identity in music is now over. Nirosha Virajini seems to be a firm believer that music should a universal language built on many syntax and grammar, all of them not necessarily eastern.
This feeling is strongly reinforced by her song ‘Sanda Thaniyama’ in which traces of country and western, folk and blues are woven together to a superb musical tapestry of magical tone colour and texture. But, no matter how good the instruments are, Nirosha’s voice hovers over them like lightning streaking over the plains. She doesn’t hold anything back. Singing the word “Adare,” she takes the first syllable high to where eagles dare, and then glides down with the other two to soothe our nerves. It’s a virtuoso performance, and no wonder she has no imitators. Speaking of the younger generation, one can only think of Devashri de Silva and Umaria Sinhawansa who might be compared to this awesome talent, and they are more Western oriented.
It’s sad to end this review on an unmusical note. But it’s exasperating to see that, despite repeated requests by organizers to switch off mobile phones during a concert, there are people so neurotically hooked up to their phones that they are terrified of doing this. During the intermission, there was too, the ungainly spectacle of a solitary female security guard running after spectators, doing her best to prevent them from bringing in drinks and their fast food packets into the hall, asking very politely at first and then pleading. But there were those who openly defied her and even those who angrily tried to put her in her place.
