SOSL performs at Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall

The Symphony Orchestra of Sri Lanka was honoured recently by being invited to perform in Japan at the Asia Orchestra Week. The Asia Orchestra Week, a festival of foremost symphony orchestras of the Asia-Pacific region, celebrates its sixth season this year.

The members playing are pictured with Ananda Dabare who conducted the preliminary rehearsals (front row, fifth left).

Three orchestras from four countries have been invited to perform this year as a part of the National Arts Festival sponsored by the Agency for Cultural Affairs of Japan. Programmes presented by these orchestras, which this year includes the KBS Symphony, a flagship orchestra of Korea, and the Kunming Symphony Orchestra from China, combine the traditional classical repertoire with innovative contemporary compositions that often reflect their own national folk music.

SOSL formed the larger part of the India-Sri Lanka Goodwill Orchestra with musicians from India and Japan. The programme for their concert under the baton of Yazaki Hikotaro at the Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall on October 4 was: Brahms: Academic Festival Overture, Harsha Makalanda: Concerto for Piano & Drums of Sri Lanka – ‘Svarasanga Vannama’ Britten: Simple Symphony, Tchaikovsky: Fantasy Overture ‘Romeo and Juliet’.

Svarasanga Vannama’ a feast of sounds for Orchestra, Piano and Sri Lankan Drums saw Harsha Makalanda, the composer, as the pianist, accompanied by Ravibandhu Vidyapathi on the Getaberaya, and Jananath Warakagoda on the Thammattama.

In preparation for the concert in Tokyo, SOSL rehearsed for three days with the assistant conductor to Maestro Yazaki, Keiko Kobayashi, who travelled to Colombo for that purpose.