Seeking out homegrown music Hunt for local musical talent is on…
Local Hunt, a chart show featuring original English music by Sri Lankan artistes, kicks off today at 8 p.m. on Channel Eye.
The show is directed by Sunanda Hettiarachchi. “We have numerous requests coming in to feature local English songs,” Ms Hettiarachchi said, explaining what led to the creation of the chart show. “At Channel Eye we have our Rise and Shine programme 365 days a year. We showcase entertainment per se only on Fridays and Saturdays. We feature various artistes,”
“When we feature local artistes on the show, they put the video of this on YouTube. We looked at the likes and views of these videos, and we realised that there was a demand for original music. This was a void waiting to be filled,” she pointed out.
“Most of these artistes do covers, but a lot of them are willing to do originals, or have worked on original material. We have to encourage this talent.”
And Channel Eye offers a nationwide platform to showcase this talent. “We want to give them exposure,” she smiled. “We felt there was no suitable platform for local English music videos. Now we are providing a platform.”
Producer Achala Solomons, who is a lyricist himself, pointed out that ‘Local Hunt’ is the first and only English, Sri Lankan, original, television music video chart show. He acknowledged that with the net available to many, people get to watch all sorts of music. And widely-available technology takes it one step further: “We find that even school children now produce good quality videos. They have the technology to capture and edit videos. Their final product is almost on par with international standards,” Mr Solomons said.
If there are those who are unable to produce a music video, Channel Eye is ready to help with that: “If an artist has a song, but no visuals to go with it, ie no music video, then we are even willing to help them produce a music video,” he said.
Uwin
Sunanda
He added that there were young Sri Lankans living abroad who had no local platform to display their talent.
Assistant Producer for Local Hunt Dulanjali Ananda says the name was suggested by Shareefa Thahir, presenter of Café Classics, Eye Shuffle & Rise and Shine. The show will be presented by Inura Jayasuriya and Uwin Hettiarachchi.
“We have a large base of people who want to do music, their own kind of music,” Uwin Hettiarachchi said.
His colleague, Inura Jayasuriya, who will join him on the hunt, going on location to capture and feature new talent added: “We hope to showcase the young guys who are trying to do something crazy, or even the older guys who have been trying to for so long but never had the platform.
“A lot of people who do covers are reluctant to do originals because they don’t get any publicity or space to showcase their music. In the Sinhala medium, you get invited to talk shows, etc,” he added.
Achala
Inura
You can take a look at what’s on offer and vote for you favourite music videos starting tonight. The show will be on every Sunday at 8 p.m. on Channel Eye.
Artistes are invited to submit their new music videos through the Channel Eye FB page: facebook.com/eyelocalhunt
You can follow them on Instagram@localhuntchart or email them on eyelocalhunt@gmail.com