Old Sinhalese Buddhist Music

The earliest stars of Sri Lankan recorded music came from the theater at a time when the traditional open-air drama (referred to in Sinhala as kolam, sokari or nadagam) remained the most popular form of entertainment. A 1903 album, entitled Nurthi, is the first recorded album to come out of Sri Lanka via Radio Ceylon. The station, which had long held a monopoly over Sri Lanka's airwaves, had been established in 1925, and one of Sri Lanka's pioneering broadcasters, Vernon Corea, almost immediately grasped the opportunity to introduce Sri Lankan Music on the English Services of Radio Ceylon.

In the wake of western and Indian proliferation in music, composer and singer Ananda Samarakoon emerged from training at Rabindranath Tagore's school at Shanthiketalan to develop a uniquely Sinhalese music tradition in 1939. His work such as "Punchi Suda", "Ennada Manike" and notably "Namo Namo Maata" (adapted as Sri Lanka's national anthem later) was a landmark of the Sinhalese song, which was known as Sarala Gee later. Another artist Devar Surya Sena with his Western education was pivotal in popularising folk songs of Sri Lanka to the English elite that bore higher status in the country at the time.