Singing for Carter

Young Sri Lankan nightingale Angela Fernando (23) brought pride and honour to her motherland when she was selected to sing the national anthem for the Former US President Jimmy Carter, on his visit to the University of California Berkeley, earlier this year.

President Carter visited the campus on May 9, 2007, to engage in a political discussion regarding his controversial book, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid. For this significant event in the University's history, Angela was selected out of the entire student body to perform the national anthem for Carter. The event which was held at the Zellerbach Auditorium, within the University premises, was sold out by Cal students alone. Angela's performance followed by President Carter's speech was also streamed live as a webcast for the rest of the student body at UC Berkeley. In addition to this honour, Angela was also chosen to sing the national anthem for the senior commencement ceremony for the graduating class of 2007.

"I definitely felt really proud and honoured to be singing for a former US President, especially being part of a minority group. It was very exciting and fulfilling to realise that I would be known as the Sri Lankan girl who sang the national anthem for the former President, when many people in the States are still clueless as to where exactly Sri Lanka is," said an enthusiastic Angela. "It was also my largest audience ever, since the event was webcast to the entire student body of about 30,000 students, so it was quite nerve wracking. I think the whole concept of a girl belonging to a minority singing the national anthem of the United States, sends a powerful message since it is in accordance with all the fundamentals the US stands by, such as diversity, democracy and as the land of opportunity. That is one of the main reasons I love singing the Star Spangled Banner because it evokes such strong and powerful emotions of patriotism, power and strength within people," she added.

When she was introduced to President Carter as a senior at UC Berkeley who was going to be singing the national anthem before his speech, Angela had briefly mentioned how much she admired his work in bringing peace to the Middle-East, especially as it has been so many years since the completion of his term as President. "His speech was very inspiring because he was offering his alternative approaches to peace which a lot of people tend to conveniently ignore, thus making his book rather controversial. After my performance he was thoroughly impressed with me and congratulated me for doing a good job with a warm hug," she said with pride.

Angela was first recognized when she began performing the national anthem for intercollegiate basketball games at the Berkeley campus. She received many other opportunities to perform for Cal alumni events and other cultural events. She was also extremely involved with the largest ethnic organization on campus "Indus" which is sort of a union for all the South Asian students at Berkeley. For the annual culture show in 2006, Angela became the first student at Berkeley to coordinate a Sri Lankan Act showcasing traditional Sri Lankan Kandyan dancing which she studied for 9 years in Sri Lanka, under well known dance gurus such as Chitrasena and Vajira, prior to moving to the US. "I've also been taking Salsa lessons since I was 17-years-old and it has been one of my biggest passions apart from singing. I try to practice my moves and learn new ones as often as I can as it's also a great workout," she said with a smile. Other than that, she still plays basketball whenever she gets the chance and is also a certified Cardio Kickboxing Instructor and is looking into teaching part time at a few gyms around the area she lives in.

Having got a BA in Philosophy because she always knew that she would be going to law school, she wanted to study a subject typical for a law student. "I am very interested in Logic and Analytical Philosophy, so I figured that philosophy was a good path to take. In some sense, I wanted to prepare myself by sharpening a very important tool required by law school which is logical reasoning," explained Angela.

After graduating last May Angela decided to take about 2 years off before she started on law school. "I just wanted to give myself some time to work, travel, sing and enjoy life," she added smilingly. At the moment she's working at Carbon Activated Corporation which is a Sri Lankan owned company, which has successfully established itself as the fourth largest activated carbon supplier in the United States.

Angela does not have any formal training in music, but she started out as a member of the Holy Family Convent Bambalapitiya Senior Choir, under the direction of Soundarie David and the St. Mary's Bambalapitiya Church Choir in Sri Lanka. "I did a lot of singing while I was at UC Berkeley too, including some solo performances and I was also part of a South Asian acapella group.

"On Soundarie's request I'm actually working on a song for Soul Sounds (the premier all female choir in Sri Lanka), that hopefully the choir can perform together with her sometime next year," she added. As for her future plans in music, she says "I'm trying my hand at writing some songs these days and I'm thinking about recording a demo CD with some of my original tracks," says Angela. Although, she has done some cover songs in the past, she thinks having her own music would be best. “I would love to record my own album someday and it would most probably be a tasteful integration of Sri Lankan rhythms and R&B/Pop,” she says adding, “especially since I also sing in Sinhala and Hindi.” Quite the multi talented song-bird, Angela definitely seems to be going places! Hope she drops by Lankan shores sometime.