Sunday the 20th March 2011 the Students of Maestro Dr Shelton Premaratne presented “Sathsara Mihira” a musical evening of its kind for the first time in the history of Sri Lankan musical performances within New South Wales. The evening was opened with a unique style of performing “Bhavaagraye ena duuvili dahrah” a wishful thinking of Sri Lanka synchronised with the traditional lighting of the oil lamp. The event was witnessed by distinguished guests including Sri Lankan Consulate General in Sydney Mr P D Fernando, at Glenwood Neighbourhood Centre in Sydney’s North West,

The flow of music and singing was highly educational touching the fundamentals of music yet building up composites ranging from “Ammi ro roi ”, a song of Veddas to “kolomba nagare raeta”, night of Colombo. The children’s play of instruments was inspirational and heart warming while the solo of playing violin and singing was a rare occurance.

All the items presented in Sathsara Mihira musical evening have music directed by Dr Shelton Premaratne and some of the items are classics from early ages of Sri Lankan cinema development. Dr Premaratne has directed music for great many artists since 1940s including the famous Sunil Santha, Rukmani devi, Nanda Malini, and Amaradeva to name few.

This evening was a pre-cursor to a major musical show to be held in early 2012.

This evening was organised by the students of Dr Shelton Premaratne’s Academy of Arts (SLIAS/SPAA) in NSW and supported by the Sinhalese Cultural Forum of NSW. Music guidance and advice given to students by Dr Shelton Premaratne, Mr Agra Premaratne and Mr Hiran Kulatilake are gratefully acknowledged.

All those who helped in various ways such as sounds (Arjuna de Silva), photography (Roy Gunaratne), video (Robin Bosco), and other numerous tasks are gratefully acknowledged.

Reported by Dr Wickrama Keerthipala

Click here to view an album of this event with photos taken by Roy Gunaratne