Sitarist Pradeep Ratnayake is one of the brilliant stars shining in the world of music in Sri Lanka. Now he has gained a reputation as one of the most recognized musicians in the West.
Currently he is on a Fulbright Scholarship to purse music at Columbia University in New York. He has combined his talents as a musician with other talented artistes who have mastered western instruments such as bass guitar, piano, mandolin and saxophone.
Recently, he performed with four other musicians at the Markham Theatre for Performing Arts creating unique pieces of Sri Lankan music. He proved to the audience that the music is a world language and it does not have any boundaries or borders to cross over.Pradeep with the rest, Nitin Mitta on tabla, Terry Pender on mandolin, Mahesh Balasuriya on piano and Jeffery Husein on bass guitar created most wonderful music blending the East and the West.
Popular Sri Lankan Folk and Wannam were played without hurting the original rhythm and the sounds. I was mostly taken up with the piece of music created by all four of them together. It was one of the most popular hits in 1960s and 1970s (the golden era of the Sinhala music) by late C.T. Fernando’s “Ane Dingak Innako, oya detha poddak dennako…”
Since the age of five Pradeep played with his father’s music instruments. His father Bandula Ratnayake foreshadowed his son’s born talents and dedication for music and gave him a sitar as a gift and placed him under the guidance of the well known Sitarist D.A. Duwage. In 1974 at the very tender age of 10 he held his first public performance.
When Pandith Ravi Shankar visited Sri Lanka in 1977 he had the rare opportunity of playing the sitar in front of him. Pradeep received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the University of Visva Bharati, Santiniketana in India. He studied under Professor Indranil Bhattacharya of the Maihar Gharana. In both degrees he earned highest marks as a sitar player. After returning home he had a series of concerts in Sri Lanka and abroad. He received the State Award for music in Sri Lanka and the Bunka Award from the Japanese Embassy. Pradeep performed for the first time in North America in 2005, at The Asia Centre in New York and Montreal, Canada. Later he performed in the Walt Disney Theatre in Los Angeles, Kennedy Centre Millennium Stage in Washington, D.C.
In November 2009, he performed to a fully packed auditorium at Carnegie Hall, New York. After watching one of the “Pradeepanjalee” shows in Sri Lanka, then High Commissioner for India Nirupam Sen said in his speech:
“You have heard glorious music. As you can see Pradeep is a person of enormous talent and I am sure one day he would be the Ravi Shankar of Sri Lanka and I don’t mean that just as a piece of diplomatic politeness.”
