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Nihal Gamhewa is a veteran music director in the Sri Lankan music industry, who has produced a large number of compositions to the Sri Lankan music world. He is known to be one of the most renowned music directors at the Bellwood Aesthetic Centre, Kandy, affiliated to National Youth Services Council (NYSC), present Sri Lankan Youth, which has been in the limelight in 1980s and 1990s. He has produced many popular artists to the Sri Lankan music industry with his mentorship and variant, simple and unique music compositions.

Upto now, he has composed nearly 1500 songs, where majority of the songs are both written, and music direction is by himself. He combined the essence of Sri Lankan music with the Hindustani music into each of his compositions, displaying the vast knowledge and his excellence in the North Indian music.

Early Life

Gamhewa was born and brought up at Kudapaduwa, Negombo. His father was a proprietor, meanwhile was a Harmonium player at Tower Hall Theatre, Colombo and his mother was a homemaker. Gamhewa was the 11th child, in a family of 13, where 5 boys and 8 girls.

Gamhewa’s maternal grandmother, Mrs. Simona Perera has been the first actress in the Sri Lanka drama genre known as “Naadagam”, at Tower Hall Theatre, Colombo who was said to be strong independent woman at her era. His elder sister, Cleopatra De Silva, was a Sri Lankan actress and another sister was a B grade singer at SLBC. Thereby, he always had an artistic family background pertaining to music and acting.

His primary education was at St. Mary’s College, Negombo, and afterwards completed the secondary education at Vidyalankara Vidyalaya, Negombo followed by Harishchandra College, Negombo. Gamhewa had a different perspective on life to excel in education, aspiring to be a skilled accountant, hence completed his Advanced Levels in the stream of Commerce.

Music Education

Yet, life took its own direction, when his desire on learning the instrument Sitar, became a reality in when he took up Sitar lessons from the Former Dean of University of Visual and Performing Arts, Sri Lanka, Mr. B S Wijerathna. Wijerathne, being a strict and a great lecturer, molded Gamhewa into a magnificent Sitar player that he is today, making Gamhewa one of his best students. In the meantime, Gamhewa also engaged in vocal training on classical North Indian music by Wijeratne.

Enroute to his learning, he completed the national Music Examination conducted by the Sri Lankan government, which is considered to be a tough examination in those time and also completed his Visharadha degree offered by the Bhthakhande Sangeet Vidyapeeth in Lucknow, India.

Then he visited Benares, India for further music studies in vocal and sitar, where he was mentored by several Indian clasiical maestros at the times, which made him outshine in Sitar even more. During the time, he was also able to be fluent in Hindi and Tamil languages.

Early Music Career

Upon completion of his studies, return to Sri Lanka , he was enrolled to Sri Lankan Broadcasting Coperation (SLBC) on passing the required Sri Lankan music examinations conducted by SLBC and was able to present his own musical compositions to the musical programs broadcasted by SLBC. In the meantime, he also worked as the lead singer in a musical band known as Kingfishers, Negombo which was popular in the time, where he showcased his singing talents in outdoor concerts and events.

During this kickstart, Gamhewa applied for a music lecturer post at NYSC Bellwood Aesthetic Centre on seeing a newspaper advertisement. This was early 1983, he was called for a practical examination for this interview. This was said to be a well competitive interview, which selected the best out of the best. He was one of the selected applicants which matched the competencies and he was able to pass the examination out of 75 selected applicants around the island, followed by a second interview, where he was selected among the top 10 contestants for the post.

On the final interview among the 10 contestants, Gamhewa was able to rank the first among the 10 contestants with the highest score. It is said that these 10 contestants included artists who were also popular in the industry. On 18th April 1983 he was appointed as the music lecturer/consultant for Bellwood Aesthetic Centre affiliated to NYSC.

At Bellwood Aesthetic Centre, Kandy - Sri Lanka

At that time NYSC was located in a small building at De Fonseka Road, Colombo 5, which was chaired by Mr. Charitha Rathwatte. Gamhewa was designated to train the musical groups at Bellwood Aesthetic Centre Tele Village, at Nugaliyadda, Kandy, Sri Lanka, where only music and dance troupes were only entitled for engaging in live shows. Thereby, Gamhewa took the pioneer ship in creating a music course content for a higher diploma for the students at Bellwood Aesthetic Centre, with the help of other music and dance teachers, where on completion of this diploma, the students were able to grab a job opportunity. Gamhewa had to struggle hard to get the approval process for this higher diploma moving forward, with several objections by the state universities. Yet with his dedication and the support from the NYSC chairman, he was able to grant approval for the diploma.

Thereby, he made a higher diploma available for both music and dance students at Bellwood Aesthetic Centre, where they had to learn the course content, complete the diploma and perform for live events simultaneously. From 1985, students after obtaining their national diploma from Bellwood Aesthetic Centre, were able to grab job opportunities as school teachers.

As a Music Director

During Gamhewa’s time at Bellwood Aesthetic Centre, he was supposed to fulfill another responsibility, where a cassette tape including songs had to be produced for the trainee students once in 6 months. Thereby, Gamhewa had to contribute to writing and composing songs for the tapes. As cassette tapes were considered to be the trend during 1980s and 1990s. This was his first step for path in gaining popularity as a music director. He also, had to work as the instructor for training the music band for most of the national events, majorly in “Gam Udawa”and “Yowunpuraya”, a national youth camp since 1983.

Thereby, Gamhewa had his music composition contributions for over 35 cassette tapes titled “Yowun Gee” (Youth Songs), as the name of the music band at Bellwood Aesthetic Centre was Yowun Gee, where all the singers were the trainee students during his time frame. A large number of songs produced through these cassette tapes won great fame among Sri Lankans, popularizing Gamhewa’s musical talent.

Rise to Fame

During this time, in early 1990s, several private entrepreneurs, started engaging in cassette tapes productions, where Gamhewa was invited to work out lyrics and music for those tapes. Such a cassette tape to be specially highlighted was “Sanda Kumariyak”, released in 1992 which rose to higher fame, where all the songs were written, and music direction was done by Gamhewa and the songs were sung by Prince Udaya Priyantha. With the release of this tape, Prince became one of the top artists during the period, which had a huge fan following in the island.

Gamhewa is considered to be the first person to introduce the instrument “Octapad” into any Sri Lankan song, where he used it to the title song, “Sanda Kumariyak” in this cassette. He was accused by many artists in the industry on the Octapad usage, yet, he didn’t let them affect on his creations, continued composing on his own terms.

Other cassette tapes sung by Prince, among Gamhewa’s compositions include, “Oba Paa Pem Sina”, “Mahada Premadare”, “Sandakada Pahana”.

In 1991, Gamhewa was landed with the grand opportunity of the music composition and music direction of Sri Lanka for the 1991 SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Corporation) festival collaborating with 7 countries. He was able to produce different musical compositions for the 7 countries pertaining to the cultures of each country. He was highly appreciated by the presidents of the 7 countries, ministers, and various other prestigious people in the event on his compositions.

In 1994, as same, cassette tape titled as “Sihina Kumariye”, most of the songs penned and music directed by Gamhewa and sung by Chandana Liyanarachchi was released, which again became a number 1 hit in the island, simultaneously paving Chandana too into popularity. Chandana’s other cassette tapes which included Gamhewa’s compositions were, “Kadupul Mala”, “Liyathamabara Mala”.

The song “Polruppawe”, composed and written by Gamhewa, sung by Chandana in 1993, was nominated as the top 10 songs in Sri Lankan in the year 2000 and was awarded 3 awards for best vocals, best lyrics and best music. Special point in this song was that the word “Polruppawa”, meaning a coconut estate, Gamhewa stood as the first person to add the word into a Sri Lankan song in the Sinhalese song literature.

He also introduced several other artists as Athula Sri Gamage, through the compositions via the cassette tape titled, “Muthu Kandulu”, Wijayabandara Welithuduwa via “Sayuru Werale” and “Sumudu Athin” tapes, Madhawa Indiketiya via “Mal Uyan There” tape, Chandrasena Hettiarachchi and Somasiri Medagedara. Numerous artistes were produced by Gamhewa through his melodious compositions to the Sri Lankan music industry.

Among Gamhewa’s top hit songs in these cassette tapes included, Sanda Kumariyak, Werala Konaka, Pemwathun Sinase, Oba Pe Pem Sina, Polruppawe, Ahala Mal Pipena, Muthu Mala Hathak, Sitha Parawa Giya, Ran Tharuka and many more other hit songs.

Most of these cassette tape songs were recorded at the Augee Studio, Nugegoda, Sri Lanka, which was owned by Augee Ranaweera, who also did the mix and mastering of the songs. These recordings included the most popular instrumentalists in the Sri Lankan music industry, Mahinda Bandara — Guitar, Thilak Dias — Bass Guitar, Hemalal Geethadeva — Rhythm Guitar, Jagath Wickramasinghe — Keys, Niresh Perera — Drums and Octapad, Hemapala Perera — Flute and Saman Perera — Saxophone. In later stages, instrumentalists from Sri Lankan Broadcasting Coperation (SLBC) were also incorporated into Gamhewa’s recordings.

Each and every song Gamhewa composed was based on some North Indian classical music Raga, with a touch of Sri Lankan flavor. Due to the elevated fame of Gamhewa’s compositions, there was a rise in the formation of a large number of music bands during this period, where his songs were played at the musical concerts. Not a single outdoor musical event in the country missed a single composition of Gamhewa in their agenda. The specialty in Gamhewa’s songs was that they were well suited for outdoor musical programs held during the time, which were followed by a huge fan following due to its energetic musical compositions, which made everyone dance to his melodious tunes.

An interesting story once said by Gamhewa, during one of his newspaper interviews was that, during musical concerts he always stayed in the audience as a regular spectator of the concerts, which he overheard the conversations of the audience commenting on the songs. He said that it was a great way to learn and know the taste of the audience, which encouraged him to compose the songs to satisfy the audience. 1990s was indeed Gamhewa’s decade of popularity which he came into a huge limelight by a great fan following.

At National Youth Services Council

In 1997, he requested for a location transfer from Bellwood Aesthetic Centre to the head office of NYSC, at Maharagama, Sri Lanka, where he was appointed as the dean for the musical department. He was also one of the pioneering members of Sri Lanka’s first ever reality competition, “Thurunu Shakthi”, organized by NYSC which chose the contestants from different regions of the country. Gamhewa travelled from city to city, village to village, conducting music workshops and choosing contestants for the competition. Gamhewa here too, dedicated in contributing to head almost all the events conducted by NYSC.

Gamhewa started a diploma at NYSC Maharagama too, for the nonresident students, which was conducted daily during the weekdays, where he was the consultant and lecturer for the students.

In 2010, he ended his 27 yearlong professional service at NYSC, retiring at the age of 58.

Personal Life

In 1997, he started his own music school at his residence, Sarangi Music College, which he tutors students, in vocal and in instruments, which also enrolled students into Indian music examinations.

Gamhewa married in 1997, to Shamalee Kavithilaka, a former accounts clerk by profession and has a daughter, Nirma De Silva, an IT graduate. He resides at Kaduwela, Sri Lanka, continuing tutoring in his school and composing songs to the newbies in the industry.

References

https://www.youtube.com/@nihalgamhewa

https://open.spotify.com/artist/3h2FTOukfd7aODPicaQ5z1?si=-BL_5MftQ0ukYk0gqlNEJg