Living (and loving) the violin
View(s):Learning life lessons through the music he plays Sulara Ferdinand Nanayakkara has never regretted making an early commitment to his instrument
Twenty year – old Sulara Ferdinand Nanayakkara first began playing the violin at age 5. His first instrument was a gift from his grandfather and Sulara who had inherited his love of music from his mother – a singer, took to it at once. While he concedes he was often missing from “the highly charged debate about Pokemon cards of the latest gameboy fixture” that his friends were having, Sulara doesn’t seem to regret at all making that early commitment to his instrument.
Pic by M. A. Pushpa Kumara
It was a good thing that practise didn’t feel like a terrible burden, because in the years to come, Sulara would put plenty of it into mastering his violin. At age 8, he entered his first competition – the Sri Lanka Festival of Music, Dance and Speech (affiliated to the British and International Federation of Festivals for Music, Dance and Speech UK) an annual event with competitors arriving from across the island. Sulara walked away with a gold medal and the title of ‘All Island winner’ in the violin category, a title he would successfully defend every year for the next nine years.
Other awards would follow. In the 2006 edition of the bi-annual Young Musician of the Year (organized by the Institute of Western Music and Speech), he became the island-wide winner of the ‘Intermediate Violin’ category. He was awarded special trophies for ‘Best Strings Performance’ in 2007, 2008 and 2009, by the Sri Lankan Festival for the Performing Arts (also affiliated to the British and International Federation of Festivals for Music, Dance & Speech UK).
An ever increasing understanding of his music has taught him some enviable life lessons. “One very important thing that music has taught me is that, everything in this world is connected,” he says, explaining that as his understanding of how to interpret pieces grew, so did his understanding of life and the situations he was encountering as an adult.
Sulara credits his teachers with helping him come so far. From his first mentor Lal Perera to Lakshman Joseph de Saram and most recently, Ananda Dabare. He has attended masters classes with the likes of Prof. Gottfried Schneider (Professor for Violin and Chamber Music at the Düsseldorf Musikschule), Leo Phillips (one time leader of the London Philharmonic Orchestra), and Gregory Lynn (First Violinist of the London Philharmonic Orchestra).
At fourteen, Sulara became the youngest violinist to join the Chamber Music Society of Colombo and he has been the Leader of the Junior Symphony Orchestra of Sri Lanka since its inception in 2010. (That was the year he received the two instruments he still plays: one is a German violin made in 1956 by Micheal C.Dutch in Berlin and the other was made in 1975 by Francesco Avaglian in Milan.) Sulara has been a First Violinist in the Symphony Orchestra of Sri Lanka for the past five years and has had the privilege of leading it in recent times. He has also Lead Mozart’s Forty-First Symphony, among others, in Celebrating Bach, Handel, and Mozart, under the baton of Eshantha Joseph Peiris.
Amongst his cherished experiences is his time as the youngest violinist to perform under the direction of the late, world-renowned Sri Lankan maestro, Kala Keerthi Dr. Premasiri Khemadasa, who featured him as a violin soloist in many recordings of ‘Khemadasa master’s’ music for television dramas, films and his Opera ‘Agni.’
Last year was an exciting one for Sulara who was chosen by the Symphony Orchestra of Sri Lanka, to go on a musical study-tour to the United Kingdom, along with three other principal musicians of the orchestra. While there, he played First Violin in the Sidcup Symphony Orchestra for Symphonic Americana, which was conducted by Dr. James Ross at St. John’s Smith Square in London.
Now having returned home, he continues to indulge his love of chamber music as a member of the Prestantia Piano Trio with Priyeshni Peiris Perera and Saranga Cooray. He also plays Music for String Quartet with his teacher and mentor, Ananda Dabare, and Thivanthi Perera and Saranga Cooray. Recently, Sulara took up a post as a Lecturer for Violin and Western Music at the University of Visual and Performing Arts, Colombo.
“Music is the only thing that I love to do and never get tired of doing, so it’s the obvious choice of career for me!” he says, “Besides performing, I wish I could pass on my knowledge to as many people as possible.”
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