Veteran singer, musician and current Consulate General at Milan, Italy, Neela Wickremasinghe has passed away.
Wickramasinghe learned music under maestro Vincent Somapala and Ananda Jayasinghe. She sang her first song for the then Radio Ceylon in 1959 for a programme ‘Amateur voice.’ In 1967 she got the privilege to record her first song with Radio Ceylon.
The song was composed by Dalton Alwis and the music was provided by Lionel Algama, “Sende ambare nisha mal yata”. In 1973, she was selected as an A-grade artiste on the merit of the songs sung of the research section of the SLBC.
After studying North Indian Classical Music, she graduated in 1974 with a Sangeeth Visharada Degree. Wickramasinghe had a number of popular hits including duets with T. M. Jayaratne.
Later, Wickramasinghe opted to become a teacher in music. After teaching in several schools she decided to retire prematurely in 1998 after a period of 23 years having had a long stint of eight years at Visakha Vidyalaya, Colombo
She has won the Sarasaviya Award thrice, Presidential award, Sumathi tele award, Zonta award and Vanitha award.
She was appointed as the Consulate General at Milan, Itali in September 2021.
