Tanya Ekanayaka (born 6 May 1977)[1] is a Sri Lankan-British contemporary virtuoso composer-pianist, classically trained and with a background in Asian and World music as well as a record producer, musicologist and linguist.[2] Notably, she is among the world’s most prolific female composer-pianists.[3]
Early life
She began studying the piano at the age of five, and at the age of 12 made her debut recital. At the age of 16, as youngest competitor and joint winner of the biennial concerto competition of the Symphony Orchestra of Sri Lanka, she performed her first concerto.[4]
Career
Ekanayaka's debut album of compositions for solo piano composed, performed and produced by her, Reinventions: Rhapsodies for Piano, came out in 2015.[5] Each work in the album builds upon a motif inspired by the tonality of the works which preceded it in its primary concert performance and adaptations of melodies belonging to genres of Sri Lankan traditional and folk music.[6][7]
Twelve Piano Prisms, her second solo album of works for the piano, was released on 14 September 2018.[4][8]
Ekanayaka's debut album contains adaptations of 10 of the 18 Sri Lankan Vannams while her second album contains adaptations of the remaining 8 Vannams along with adaptations of indigenous and traditional melodies of Armenia, China, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States of America.[9]
The Planets & Humanity - Piano Reflections, her third solo album of works for the piano, was released on 14 May 2021.[10]
The works in this album correspond to reflections on the eight planets of earth’s solar system and earth’s seven continents and most contain trans-creations of melodies of indigenous peoples of Africa, Asia, Australia/Oceania, Europe, North America and South America, specifically, melodies of the Asháninka, Cree, Gond, Hadza, Numbulwar and Sámi people.[11]
18 Piano Sutras & 25 South Asian Pianisms is Ekanayaka's double album, also her fourth solo album of 43 works for solo piano composed in 2021 and 2022 and released in April 2023.[12]
The 43 compositions draw on 40 human languages and 42 traditional secular songs containing lyrics in these languages, with the 18 languages underlying the 18 Sutras of Disc 1 spread across the six continents of Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, Oceania and South America, being endangered, critically endangered, at risk, threatened, very old, no longer spoken or in some cases extinct, and the remaining 22 languages underlying the 25 South Asian Pianisms of Disc 2 being predominant in the eight nations of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, The Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, forming Ekanayaka’s home region, South Asia. [13]
The 40 languages underlying the 43 compositions of 18 Piano Sutras & 25 South Asian Pianisms are Ainu, Bantawa, Bengali, Bhutanese Nepali, Bumthang, Chakma, Chamorro, Dari, Dhivehi, Dzongkha, Efé/Lese, Garifuna, Hindi, Kannada, Karaim, Khowar, Koda, Kolyma Yukaghir, Konomihu, Kuna, Mordvinic, Nepali, Nyangatom, Odia, Pashto, Puluwat, Shaninawa (a Yaminawá dialect cluster), Shimaore, Sindhi, Sinhala, Sogdian, Sri Lankan English/ English, Sri Lankan Malay, Sri Lankan Tamil, Saptari Tharu, Trinidad Bhojpuri, Tsimané, Urdu, Vedda and Wahgi.[14]
Ekanayaka is the first Sri Lankan composer, in history, to have complete albums of original music released worldwide by international record labels.[15]
She also developed a music composition project from 2012 to 2014. The project aimed to assist war-affected and impoverished Sri Lankan school children recovering from the country's thirty year civil war.[16][17][18]
Ekanayaka holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) degree from the University of Peradeniya and a Master of Science degree and PhD from the University of Edinburgh.[9] She is a Fellow (FTCL) of the Trinity College of Music (UK), a Licentiate (LRSM) of the Royal Schools of Music (UK) and Licentiate (LGSMD) of the Guildhall School of Music & Drama (UK) which awarded her its Professional Performer's Diploma (PPD) in 1999.[9]
She is ambidextrous and has a synaesthesia, which influences her style of composition.[9]
