TV Times - temp

Shaminda Jayasekara of 'Margarita' fame has released his debut album to the media, which comprises of four songs.

Shaminda came to the limelight with his first song 'Margarita' that went on to top the charts in Sirasa - 'Rasa Risi Gee' in 2001. Nowadays the song is a hot favourite in many chart shows in TV channels. 'Margarita' has taken the Sinhala pop music arena by storm within a short time span.

The music video also has done justice to the flavour of the song.

Kasun Kalhara did the music track for 'Margarita' - a mix of Reggae, Rap and a little bit of Indian rhythms. Minu and Indrachapa rendered their voices in co-singing where Ruwan Walpola was the recording engineer. It was the team effort of these young musicians finally gave birth to 'Margarita.'

Shaminda is very much interested in 'Sinhala Pop music' and has composed many melodies on the style while doing some research work on musicians who served the style in the past. He believes Sinhala pop music to be the only style that allowed popular western music genres to merge into Sri Lankan music. Shaminda pays tribute to musicians from Sunil Shantha to Calerence Wijewardene who worked tirelessly to develop this music tradition to a major trend in Sri Lanka. He admires Clarence's role as a lyricist, composer, singer and a performer, for adding a local touch to Sinhala pop group culture, which was introduced by Neville Fernando in the early 60s.

The album is named after 'Iss-ko-lay' the latest song of Shaminda, which is written in a story-telling manner and is supported by an easygoing melody. Billy Fernando - a gifted rocker who excels in drums and guitars has done the sound track for the song with Ranil Gunawardene. Salome, a teen singer has come up brilliantly with her vocals, adding a touch of class in Indian music to 'Iss-ko-lay.'

In the four songs he presents here, Shaminda has used many western music styles with Sinhalese and English lyrics. He himself has penned the lyrics and composed the melodies for all of his songs which have been arranged and fine-tuned by talented young musicians of his era.

The other two songs are 'Himidiriye oba ma' - a semi rock and 'Muhudu Rella'- a direct reflection of Clarence's style of music.

Most of his songs have been done, keeping the performing aspects of the song in mind, giving prominence to melody and rhythm where the lyrics would play the second fiddle.

Shaminda is a product of Royal College and graduated in Performing Arts from the University of Colombo. He gratefully remembers his gurus in popular culture and music, veteran film directors Dharmasena Pathiraja and Tissa Abeysekera, Maestro Premasiri Khemadasa and Dr. Sunil Wijesiriwardena for their lessons on and off the field. Shaminda intends to come up with more creations making his contribution in lyrics, melodies and in vocals towards the local music scene. He hopes to blend western popular music styles and Indian rhythm patterns with Sinhala lyrics with the help of technological advances in modern music. He is willing to compose new songs for artistes who would like to continue in Sinhala pops, regardless of their experience or exposure. Shaminda has tied up with many stars of 70s to compose new songs for their future albums.