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Kala Korner - by Dee Cee

Now it’s film songs from Nanda Malini
A rich tradition of Sinhala film music is steadily growing. During the 58-year old history of the Sinhala cinema, music directors, lyric writers and singers have contributed much towards the progress of film music. True the early years saw Hindi music being blatantly copied with songs based on Hindi tunes being repeated with Sinhala words, but in between, some of the music directors had the courage to experiment and produce high quality music scores.

These have to be preserved for posterity but not much effort has been made towards conserving them. Some of maestro Premasiri Khemadasa's creations came out in an audio cassette some years back. Titled 'Golu Hadawathhe sita Thunveni Yamaya dakwa' - it's possibly the only collection of theme music from films.

In this context, it is significant that leading songstress Nanda Malini had chosen film songs for her annual release this year. 'Ran Kenden Benda' - a song she sang in Vijaya Dharmasri's film 'Duhulu Malak' in 1976 - is the title of the cassette and CD released under a new label 'Gigiri' - a venture by renowned lyric writer Kularatne Ariyawansa. Nanda Malini has selected 16 songs sung by her during the period 1961 - 1999. These include some of her award winning songs.

Nanda Malini's long list of awards began with the first Sarasaviya Film Festival in 1964 when she won the Best Songstress Award for 'Galana Gangaki Jeevithe' from 'Ran Muthu Duwa'. Included in the present collection are poems from Sunil Ariyaratne's film 'Siribo Aiya' for which she won both the Presidential and Sarasaviya awards in 1980, 'Nopenena Denethata' from Linton Semage's 'Paadadaya' (Presidential Award 1999) and 'Ude Hiru' from Ariyaratne Vithanage's 'Irasma' (Sarasavi Award - 2003).

The collection also gives the listener a chance of enjoying creations from a number of lyric writers - some of whom possibly wrote just a few songs.
Few of us may remember that well-known journalist Dayasena Gunasinghe was a lyric writer. One of his creations, 'Aasha Pethum' from Sunitl Ariyaratne's 'Ahas Maliga' (1994) is included. So is Tilak Ratnakara's 'Surinda Devole' also from 'Ahas Maliga' sung with Pandit Amaradeva. We knew Gamini Fonseka as a brilliant actor and director, but he did write a song or two. Among them was 'Bambarindu Bambarindu' in Sunil Ariyaratne's highly appreciated film 'Sarungale' (1979) where Gamini played an award winning role.

Nanda Malini is known for her pioneering role in changing the style of singing film songs. She developed her own style. Thereafter what we began to hear were 'Sinhala songs' in Sinhala films! No wonder she has collected at least 20 awards (Sarasaviya 12 & Presidential 8) during her 40 year 'reign' as the supreme songstress of Sri Lanka. Way back in 1972, she was chosen by the Lankadeepa readers as the most popular songstress. Thirty years later, ITN viewers acknowledged her as the most popular.

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