Galle Music Festival – Children’s Day
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The children’s day of the Galle Music Festival was a huge success with over 3000 girls and boys coming to the Martin Wickramasinghe Museum in Koggala. The event was organized by the Sevalanka foundation together with the Royal Norwegian embassy. The whole day programme had many exciting events which were both very educational as well as entertaining.
From dubbing, karaoke, lyric writing, acting and videography workshops to different stalls showing the different cultures of Sri Lanka like the
traditional Koothu which is a dance drama tradition of the Tamil community, the Muslim community with their cultural songs and dances, Thavil and Nadaswaran which is music produced by a traditional drum and a long flute.
There was traditional Sinhala singing performed by the Ranwala Brigade who also had a booth for children’s singing. Among the more native type of art forms, the Ceylon-African Manja did a very colourful performance with their traditional Portuguese Baila singing and dances and even the performance of the Vedda community was quite dynamic.
Another booth which attracted a lot of audience was the traditional Rookada troupe who not only performed quite a hilarious drama but also explained to the
children about the history of the tradition, how the puppets are made, etc. Among the many foreign groups that performed were, Ten Sing from Norway which consists of around 20 voices from the ages of 19 to 21, Shironamhin from Bangladesh which is currently the most popular band there for their specialty in bonding many different types of musical instruments together.
Another performer was Groupo Roda Viva (wheel of life) from Brazil whose main target is to rescue and value Samba and Choro, two most popular and traditional music forms in Brazil. Donn Bhat and Passenger Revelator from India is well known for their unique mixture of genres. Donn is a popular songwriter, producer and guitar player. A group from Palestine called Sabreen Association for Artistic Development also performed.
“This is the first time we have come for the Galle Music Festival,” said the Eastern Music teacher of Warakapitiya Maha Vidyalaya, Rupika Chithramali. “It was an important experience for the children where they learnt many things that are important for them in their studies as well as for them to learn about other cultures. It’s also a change for the children to be away from the everyday studying environment and to enjoy themselves.”
