Mirror Magazine

Mirror Magazine

Making another mark in music
By Ishani Ranasinghe
CharlesMark comprising Rukshan Lokuge and Bertram Charles are no strangers to the music scene; these two friends started their musical career together in a musical choir. Six years ago CharlesMark was the first band to release a “Single” CD in Sri Lanka. The Single has become the first local English song to enter the international charts Top 40 and reach No.3. They also released their debut album ‘Surangana’ a few months back and are now ready to have their first ever live concert.

“We have done concerts before but never on this scale,” says Rukshan starting off our interview explaining that this is the first time they are having a concert with live music. Excited about the concert he adds that they have really worked hard and hope that this will be one of those where the audience enjoy themselves immensely.

Of their music he says that they have no marketing strategy when they write their music. This has been both a negative and a positive thing for them, “It has worked against us because at times we can’t really sell our music whereas the good thing is our music is very personal and there is a touch of reality in it,” he says. Over the years they have gone through a lot of rejection and pain as well as success; all of it is in their songs, “they bring out the real us.” They do all the songwriting and also put the melody to most of their songs, “afterwards we get Ranga Dassanayaka to do his master work.”

As for the line-up for the concert they are planning on singing originals as well as covers. “The originals will include tracks from the album we released and a few from the next album as well,” he says adding that the music played will be a fusion of western as well as eastern sounds. Making the concert a bit exciting will be guest performances from two well known artistes here in Sri Lanka.

A show that is tipped to be about an hour and a half long they promise it to be really good. A show with a difference? “I wouldn’t say, that the concert is very different from anything else,” he adds but instead says that it’s something that has been influenced by the likes of Alien Accent etc.

In the music scene for the past seven years this is the first time they are having a concert, “we realised that there is a need for good performances here.” And something else they hope to really focus on at the concert is the quality of sounds, “I think this is one area people don’t pay much attention to but it does make a difference at a concert,” he says simply.

The band that will be backing CharlesMark comprises Riza Faiz on drums, Nadeeka Jayawardena on bass Kanchana Jayasuriya on piano Shakila Ganegama on keyboard Ruwan Weerasekera on violin, Nalin Samth on guitar with Trevina Abeysundere and Roshni Gunaratne on vocals.

CharlesMark in Concert will be at the Bishop’s College Auditorium on October 23 from 7.30 p.m. onwards. The main sponsors for the event are Dialog, Cream Soda and Polaroid. The media sponsor is Sirasa.

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