Dramatic soprano
Jayanthi Liyanage
Danali David was 16 years old when she won the Showboat Karaoke
competition, singing Whitney Houston’s “I will always love you”. The
event was also the threshold of her transition from pop music to
classical music.
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Dinali with her baby |
“Your voice is now at a stage when you need to try more difficult
things,” Dinali’s teacher Mary Anne David told her. “Teenagers don’t
like classical music,” says Dinali.
“But I love singing so much that I wanted to see what more I could
do.” Mary Anne advised that she gets into semi classical music. “I
followed her advice and as usual, she was right,” said Dinali. “Once I
started doing it, I couldn’t get enough. The more difficult a song she
gave me, the more I wanted to try.”
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Budding vocalist |
Dinali
David’s training in vocal technique and performance began at the
age of nine with Mary Anne David at Mary Anne School of Vocal
Music. Now a soprano at the age of 25, she is an old girl of
Ladies’ College and Wycherly International School. She has a BBA
in Management from Northwood University (USA) at American
National College. She studied drama under her mother, Anne
Wijesinghe, and Theory of Music with the late Ranjani Perera and
Nilani Vaas.
Dinali is now married to
Mary Anne’s son Andre who is a vocal teacher, singer, actor and
choreographer and runs the junior school of vocal music.
Dinali’s son Jordan is 14 months old and she is expecting her
second child in May.
She teaches speech and drama at AWS Academy of Education and is
a senior member and a lead soloist of the Merry An Singers. She
has won several singing competitions at school and national
levels and has been a soloist at several concerts and events,
with many groups including Cantata Singers. |
“It is an acquired taste,” feels Dinali. “Many people don’t like
opera when they hear it first, but as you go on listening, it starts to
register how beautiful it is. There is something sublime about it that
only people who hear it all the time understands.” Now a dramatic
soprano, she held her first full length recital in early February, at
the Russian Cultural Centre, accompanied by Eshantha Peiris on piano and
with guest artists Shamistha De Silva (cello) and Sanjeeva Niles
(tenor-baritone). For the first half of the program, she sang
compositions by Schumann and Schubert among others, and her current
favourite “Porgi Amor” from Mozart’s opera “The Marriage of Figaro.” The
second half of the program consisted of songs from Broadway and Gershwin
Brothers.
Dinali’s current favourite composer is Verdi. She used to sing “Vissi
d’arte, vissi d’amor” from his opera “Tosca” very often. “Verdi’s stuff
is dramatic but unfortunately I am still too young to do more of his
works,” said Dinali. “It is not healthy for my voice because it is very
strong. I have to wait till I am 35 to sing his major works. In the
field of classical music, your voice is best after 35.” She also follows
the American soprano Rene Fleming and New Zealand singer Kiri Te Kanawa.
Last August, Dinali sang in concert with Symphony Orchestra of Sri
Lanka. “It was a totally new experience as when you sing with about 50
instruments, you don’t have that one line to support you,” says Dinali.
“Co-ordination is a little difficult. You never sing a song the same way
twice as when you add your feelings to it, it keeps on changing. For the
orchestra, it was a challenge to move with my emotions. I found I
couldn’t let my emotions run free with it as I do with the piano. When
you sing with the piano, it keeps you focused.”
Dinali plans on doing her Masters in singing and performing,
explaining that her intensive training received from Mary Anne places
her way beyond the degree level. “I won’t be able to do another full
length recital until February next year but I might go for a two week
workshop overseas and do small performances here and there.”
Asked what she thinks of the classical music scene in Sri Lanka,
Dilani says that she is starved for full length classical recitals and
opera. “What is produced here are musicals. There are other singers like
me but we don’t get to be heard.
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Danali David. Pictures by Saman Sri Wedage |
There is a tiny niche market for our music but they are the same
people. But it looks like a growing market with a lot of young people
getting into classical music. It might take another five to ten years to
take off.”
She also regrets the demise of Premasiri Khemadasa as she feels that
the majority of the market would have listened to his Sinhala opera. “I
thank my parents (Anil and Anne Wijesinghe) a million times for putting
me into Aunty Mary Anne’s school,” expresses Dinali. “She is definitely
the most knowledgable teacher in the country. I am sad that people in
Sri Lanka do not know that they have this treasure chest sitting here
and they are not using it.” It is never too late to follow your dreams,
says a determined Dinali, citing as an example her own path to become a
soprano, from being an asthmatic and a very shy child who used to scream
when she saw Santa Claus. |
