Premasiri Kemadasa
Premasiri Kemadasa (1937 -2008) can be introduced as an outstanding experimental Sri Lankan musician who established a unique music sub-culture in Sri Lankan music traditions. He was one of the pioneers of a modern style of film music, stage drama music, teledrama music as well as light song music for Sri Lanka, based on folk melodies and his own inventions, sometimes inspired by Western classical pieces. He offered several forms of experimental music into the art stream of the country and tried to give a new experience to his audience. He tried to introduce western music forms and genres such as Opera, Ballet, Symphony, Cantata, etc. to modern Sri Lankan music. (Kemadasa; 2018)

    According to Kemadasa, Piriniwanmangallaya, the world first Buddhist Cantata was influenced by the libretto from folk poems (accompanied with dancing forms practiced in the low country region of Sri Lanka) and applied Sri Lankan folk melodies along with North Indian Classical music and certain elements from western music to depict the grieving sense of Lord Buddha’s Death.

ParThe introduction of such composition to Sri Lankan music can be considered a significant achievement by the composer. According to the Buddhist philosophy and the socio-cultural ideology in Sri Lanka, Buddha’s death is considered as a deep philosophical theme. Kemadasa tried to represent Buddha’s death as an emotionally sensitive incident through the use of Sri Lankan folk melodies with a combination of some western music elements. Kemadasa has not directly applied folk melodies for his composition but he has used some styles such as the singing of prose (similar to recitatives), traditional lamentation poems, singing with sound vibrations to make visual images. Further, he got some influences from Sri Lankan traditional folk melodies such as Buddhist recitals (Pirith chanting), Harvest songs (Nelum Gee), Lamentation songs etc. to create further meaningful impact.

Similarly when the time that Lord Buddha had come to the end of his life and was ready to attain death, Kemadasa has used Lamentation poem melodies with soprano solo voices to emphasize the sorrowful feeling. Further, he has used all voice ranges in western music such as Soprano, Mezzo-soprano, and Alto for females and Bass, Baritone and Tenor for males. In addition, Kemadasa has used western as well as eastern musical instruments to enrich this musical composition. Sri Lankan percussion and wind instruments such as Udakkiya, Thammattam, Bamboo flute, Horanewa, and North Indian instruments such as Sitar as well as western musical instruments like, Oboe, Cello and Violin are some of those instruments he used for this composition.