Published on 3rd September 2022 on Silumina - Rasanduna newspaper

Harshadewa Ariyasinghe is a young artist who works in the field of information technology, but continues working on his inherited musical abilities. This is the interview with Rasanduna about him and the latest songs that are about to be released.

Harshadewa inherited music from his mother and father. That beginning has a history. “I come into this field from a family background with many connections. My Grandfather, that is, my mother's father, the late veteran musician R. A. Chandrasena.  He had worked as a music director since the 1940s 1960s, 70s, and 80s.  Also, my father is a talented Tabla player and the famous singer W.  D.  Ariyasinghe.  My mother is music scholar Darshanee Chandrasena. She is a teacher and has worked in the Ministry of Education. He grew up with the inspiration of all of them since childhood.

“So it was easy to adjust my musical life. While I got inspiration from my father in terms of singing, I got the knowledge I needed in music direction from my grandfather and mother.

I chose IT as my career.  However, music work has not stopped.  Now I have started working with music directors in England. I am trying to add the best things from UK to Sri Lankan music by learning from music technology here. It can be seen in my upcoming songs.”

As he said that we will be hearing some of his new music in the future, Harshadewa told the following story when he asked for more details about it.

"Three new songs have been completed so far.”   He started working on them while in Sri Lanka but finished the work on all three songs after moving to England. The song "Seethala Dawasaka" will be released this month.

“It is a beautiful love song. The specialty of this song is that the lyrics, melody, music direction and singing all by me. I also contribute to its video script. It was a new experience for me and the music technology used for creating this song is advanced too. Sri Lanka has to make a difference and move away from average songs.  I am confident that I will be able to elevate Sri Lankan music through these. Music enthusiasts and learners have something to learn from this research-level work I hope.  I’m also planning to release the remaining two songs in coming month.

You entered singing from your father's heritage, that's why you have recreated your father's songs, and got good response for that. Do you have any plans to recreate more songs in the future?

“So far, two more songs have been recreated.  But I didn't want to come out of my father's songs really.  I prefer to create an identity for myself through my own independent work and it was successful. The first work I did was the song "Nobala Ma Diha".  It was a hit. Raini Charuka later sang the female version too. After that I sang “Heena Maka” and “Samarum Sena”. I also composed and sang “Sansara Ale” and “Ayasaye”.  Anyway, it was only after I got my own fans that I recreated two of my father's songs "Maa Langatama" and "Walakulu Pelin Basinna" with Dulshara De Alwis. They received exceptional response. There are some absolutely beautiful songs of my father that are not popular. I hope to recreate them again.  But mainly I am thinking of presenting my independent music.

No matter where you are in the world, music is the universal language. So Harshadewa must also have goals that he eagerly hopes to achieve.

“My biggest goal is to release songs with Sri Lankan music vibe mixed with Western/British music.  That means creating some beautiful songs that we can all listen to and enjoy without harming both tastes.  Music has no limits. So my idea is to do more research, work to the best of my ability and create some beautiful songs.  The second goal is about doing concert featuring my own songs. I am planning for it these days.