Carving her own path
At just 20 years of age young Melissa Perera is carving out a path in the music industry for her vocal prowess and original compositions. As a TNL Onstage soloist winner for this year she sang her own music at both the Onstage final and at the Colombo Music Festival’s Spirit competition.
A student of Holy Family Convent Bambalapitiya, Melissa started writing her own music after a school music assignment, which eventually became a hit within school. “I’ve been writing songs since I was about seven, but that assignment gave me the push I needed to do it on amore serious level,” she remembers. She would also arrange music for the school choir, tweaking arrangements so well-known numbers were given their own personal twist.
Melissa performing at ‘Spirit’. Pic by Panduka de Silva
Like a true star, Melissa started performing even before she began composing, and went on to gain islandwide recognition for her vocal talent. Taking part in interschool and national competitions hit home that music was her calling in life. “I was 15 and arranging Mariah Carey’s Hero for a competition when the song really struck a chord. That performance turned things around for me.”
With a single-minded determination to prove herself worthy of being part of the industry, Melissa decided to pursue a career in music while juggling life as a first-year Management student at the University of Colombo. The decision to go into Onstage was partly to decide if a career in the music industry was really cut out for her. “I wanted to know if I belonged in music. I was just starting out and I wanted to be sure. I thought I would let the results of Onstage be the judge-I’m glad that turned out well!” she laughs. “Being a part of Onstage made me explore genres other than the ones I was comfortable with which were Soul, Rn’B and Jazz. For example I had never tried singing Rock before but with Onstage I discovered that Rock is definitely something I can incorporate into my songs. Being on stage every round also helped me get used to the crowds and loosen up while performing.”
It definitely helped that originality was something that was encouraged at Onstage, she adds. “My strength is in being original so that’s what I focussed on in each round. Up to the finals I did covers of songs by male singers and that was pretty fun. But the highlight was definitely when I sang my own song, I Will Wait for the finale. It felt fantastic to sing it to the people who were the inspiration behind it-my friends from university.”
Having trained under Mary Anne David, Melissa has sung with choirs such as The Merry An Singers, Choro Calibre and Soul Sounds. Armed with that experience she went into the much more chorally focussed ‘Spirit’ competition, held in parallel to the Colombo Music Festival in August. At Spirit she didn’t disappoint, winning the Overall Excellence Award for Outstanding Musicianship and Performance, and being named winner of the Pop and R&B Solo Voice category.
She might be young but she’s got big plans. Melissa hopes to release some of her originals in the near future-and none of this would be possible were it not for a great support system of friends, family and industry professionals, she smiles. Pursuing dreams of making it big in the industry armed withher own original compositions, this young lady is what many would call bravely optimistic. Listening to her speak of her dreams with so much passion tempered with just the right amount of confidence though, one can’t help but predict a bright future ahead.
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