Tanya to perform Mozart’s ‘Elvira Madigan’ and two originals
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Tanya Ekanayake: Improvisation at the heart of her music
The Chamber Music Society of Colombo performs its “Season Finale” on Tuesday, December 5, at the Lionel Wendt Theatre. The concert will feature the internationally acclaimed composer-pianist Dr. Tanya Ekanayaka performing Mozart’s most popular concerto the ‘Elvira Madigan’.
Classically trained and with a background in popular and South Asian music, Tanya Ekanayaka is also an improviser, musicologist, linguist and record producer.
The concert sponsored by Fairway Holdings will also feature the Sri Lankan premiere of two of Tanya Ekanayaka’s own new works for solo piano titled ‘C – Emerald Lapwing Karpet’and ‘F – Renewal & Goyam Kapuma’which will be on her forthcoming second solo CD for solo piano performed and produced by her and due to be released worldwide by Naxos Records, the world’s largest independent record label. Also on the programme will be the music of Bach, Rameau and Elgar.
The orchestra is led by concert-master Lakshman Joseph de Saram.
Tanya Ekanayaka’s critically acclaimed debut album of her own compositions for solo piano performed and produced by her and titled ‘Reinventions: Rhapsodies for Piano’ was launched worldwide by Naxos Records (Grand Piano).
This album introduces a genre developed by her and also represents the first album of compositions entirely by a Sri Lankan composer to be launched globally by a major record label.
Although trained as a pianist, Tanya Ekanayaka’s compositional skills are the result of a purely intuitive development and are connected to her ambidexterity and partial colour synaesthesia. Her compositions evolve when she is at the piano and once evolved, remain precisely frozen in her memory. They have not been scored.
Her composition ‘Adahas: Of Wings Of Roots’ was also recently featured in the recent Naxos Records album titled ‘Three Centuries of Rare Keyboard Gems’ released in 2017.
Often the first Sri Lankan compositions to ever be performed at première international concert venues Tanya Ekanayaka’s compositions have also been featured on international media such as BBC World Radio and BBC World News Television as part of exclusive interviews.
Resident in the UK, she is on the teaching faculty of the University of Edinburgh where she has taught in both its Departments of Linguistics and Music since 2007.