Tanya Ekanayaka - Twelve Piano Prisms

Information

1. E Flat - July 2016/17
2. B Flat - Armenia to a Pearl
3. C - Emerald Lapwing Karpet
4. D Flat - Intuition, Auld Lang Syne & An Asian Sacred
5. G - With Paaru Kavi
6. F - Renewal & Goyam Kapuma
7. E - Arrow-and
8. A - Zuni Sea
9. A Flat Scintilla: Komitas Unto Childhood
10. B - Of Vannam & Zhuang Tai Qiu Si
11. F Sharp - Kitty & Bambaru
12. D - Hana Hare

Tanya Ekanayaka, piano & compositions

Date: 2018

Label: Grand Piano

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Review

Sri Lankan composer Tanya Ekanayaka (b. 1977) started as a pianist, making her debut with the Symphony Orchestra of Sri Lanka at age 16. All of her university work has been based around linguistics, concluding with a Ph.D. in Linguistics and Musicology from the University of Edinburgh.

Her recent release, Twelve Piano Prisms, takes the 12 notes of the scale and uses them as the basis for a wonderful set of works that are inspired not only by Sri Lankan vannam melodies but also by melodies from the other countries and continents.

The 18 classic Sri Lankan vannam melodies date back to the 16th and 17th centuries and were inspired by nature, history, legend, folk religion, folk art, and sacred lore. Each is composed and interpreted in a certain mood (rasaya) or expression of sentiment. The eighteen classical vannams are gajaga (elephant), thuranga (horse), mayura (peacock), gahaka (conch shell), uranga (crawling animals), mussaladi (hare), ukkussa (eagle), vyrodi (precious stone), hanuma (monkey), savula (cock), sinharaja (lion), naga (cobra), kirala (red-wattled lapwing), eeradi (arrow), Surapathi (in praise of the goddess Surapathi), Ganapathi (in praise of the god Ganapathi), uduhara (expressing the pomp and majesty of the king), and assadhrusa (extolling the merit of the Buddha). Ekanayaka uses 8 of the vannam in her Prisms.

If we look at just 3 of her Prisms, we see vannams combined, vannams combined with a Scottish folk song, and a vannam combined with a traditional Native American melody. This kind of writing, using the music of the entire world as inspiration, is a distinctly modern conceit.

Piano Prism No. 3 in C uses the the Vairodi (‘Emerald’) and Kirala (‘Lapwing’) vannams blended and adapted.

In Piano Prism No. 4 in D flat, for example, she mixes the iconic 19th-century Scottish folk song Auld Lang Syne, and the Sri Lankan Surapathi vannam.

In Piano Prism No. 8 in A, Ekanayaka looks to Native American Zuni culture and combines a Zuni sunset song with a vannam on the conch shell.

The other tracks are equally interesting, combining the vannams with traditional Sri Lankan songs and taking inspiration from nature, such as the homeless cat who came to live with her, or jungle bees (both the song and the insect). Ekanayaka’s use of international melodies as her inspiration truly puts her in a new class of composition.

— Maureen Buja

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Tanya Ekanayaka (born 6 May 1977) is a Sri Lankan-British contemporary composer-pianist. Classically trained with foundations in Asian and popular music, she is also a linguist, musicologist and record producer. Born in Sri Lanka's Kandyan highlands, she debuted publicly at twelve and has since performed internationally. She holds a doctorate in Linguistics and Musicology from University of Edinburgh, where she has taught since 2007. Her deeply autobiographical compositions, shaped by multilingualism and synaesthesia, are developed intuitively at the piano and retained from memory rather than formally notated.

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