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September 6th, 2008
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A haunting meeting of Eastern and Western music

At Atrium, original work from a Sri Lankan pianist

By Tony Ozuna
For The Prague Post
June 18th, 2008 issue

Photo by JEFF HUSH
Khemadasa interrupted her studies to help with the tsunami relief efforts.
Gayathri Khemadasa


When: Friday, June 20, at 7:30
Where: Atrium
Tickets: 200 Kč, available at the door
Žižkov’s venerable Atrium will reverberate with fresh sounds Friday evening as Sri Lankan pianist Gayathri Khemadasa performs her own compositions, backed by her group Facing The Waves. Khemadasa, 31, is a tiny, solitary and fragile figure who looks like she is still in her teens, though she moved to Prague from Sri Lanka 13 years ago to study at the Prague Conservatory.
“I chose to study at the conservatory because I love Bach!” she says earnestly. She started by studying piano rigorously with Jaromír Kříž, whose teacher was a student of Franz Liszt.
After three years at the conservatory, during which she discovered lesser-known Czech composers such as Kabeláč, Doubrava and Pelikán, as well as the major composer Leoš Janáček, she went on to study harpsichord at the Academy of Early Music. “The academy only accepts two to three students each year, so I felt very lucky to even get in,” she says.
Khemadasa’s father, Premasiri, also had an immense influence on her music. Sri Lanka’s most famous composer, he began his career in the 1960s, combining Sri Lankan folk melodies with classical composition. Thus, like the Czechs’ own Janáček and Dvořák, who were his inspirations, he created a unique musical voice for Sri Lanka.
Khemadasa interrupted her studies for two years after the 2004 tsunami struck Sri Lanka. Soon afterward, she returned to see her family and assist in the relief efforts to help thousands of displaced people. When she returned to Prague in 2005, she organized a series of benefit concerts, playing the music of Czech composers to raise money for tsunami victims.
She was also involved in a documentary about victims of the tsunami, Facing The Waves, filmed by American Jeff Hush just three months after the disaster. She provides the haunting soundtrack, a cycle of 10 songs for the film, which also examines the problems of intolerance and violence that were reopened in Sri Lanka in the wake of the tsunami.
Khemadasa’s music for the film (available on CD) is similar to the minimalist work of Phillip Glass, who she admits is an important influence. However, her music has a softer, more emotional touch. And, beyond that, Khemadasa expands into her own contemporary and defiant lyricism, influenced by Sri Lankan folk music (both Sinhalese and Tamil), recent events in her homeland and her often difficult life in Prague.
For instance, she recalls waiting at the Muzeum metro station one night two years ago when a man suddenly came up and kicked her hard in the leg. “I hate dark people,” he bragged to his girlfriend, then continued on his way. No one came to her aid. And that was not an isolated incident.
“I never expected to find such virulent racism as I found in the Czech Republic,” Khemadasa writes on the Web site for Facing the Waves. “The Romany people are treated as third-class citizens; on the streets I am seen as one of them. I feel a strong solidarity with them.”
Khemadasa is planning to move to Toronto in January, after she finishes her studies at the Academy of Early Music. She will be following her sister, who studied cybernetics in Prague on a full scholarship at the Czech Technical University, then left after graduating four years ago because she couldn’t take the racist attitudes she found here. Khemadasa says she’s also had enough of the racism and intolerance.
So this is an opportunity to hear what may be her last performance in Prague. She will play both solo and with her band, which features Pavel Krajský on bass, Dita Bláhová on violin and Badra, a drummer from Mali.

Tony Ozuna can be reached at tempo@praguepost.com


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Reader's comments:

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[08:30 20/06/2008] : I'm sure that all of us admire what she is doing and I congratulate her on that.
Never mind the few obstacles that get in the way of one's goal.
Rohan Peiris
Doha - Qatar
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