Escape, The musical getaway virtual live musical concert which featured Sri Lanka’s most wanted and talented musicians together with upcoming and hidden talents from SLIIT was held on 9th May 2020 from 8pm onwards through Zoom and Facebook Live. It was one the most anticipated events during this quarantine period.
The Rotaract Club of SLIIT along with AIESEC of SLIIT got together to do something new and to show their unity. According to them, the main objective of this event was to help everyone overcome quarantine blues. The audition was held on 3rd of May, they chose best 10 finalist from over 45 performers with the help of the judges Nifal Ibrahim and Helani Jayawardhanae to perform in the show. They helped the finalist practice and had rehearsals to sharpen their talents and give a solid output without any technical difficulties.
With much anticipation, Hesha Inali started the proceeding by welcoming everyone, explained about the event and invited the 1st performer, I would say, Audience’s one of the most demanded artist Nifal Ibrahim, lead guitarist from infinity band. He performed his own song “Heethala Wassa” followed by a beautiful love ballet “Unmadini Hanguna” which he dedicated to BNS, Kusal and his loved ones. Doing what you love the most is an amazing thing in life and in that way, Ibrahim is lucky enough to choose music as his career which he loves the most.
Once a wise man rightly said, “If you do not go after what you want, you will never get it. If you do not ask, the answer will always be no. If you do not step forward, you will always be in the same place.”. The finalists who are the best out of best, talented souls stepped forward and used this as the platform to express their hidden talents. The performances were diverse; beautiful melodies in English, Sinhala and Tamil, old classical numbers, mashup of songs from different languages, instrumental play, beatboxing etc. All the performances were marvelous and entertaining. Some were at its best which triggered our nerves and increased the production of dopamine in our brain, literally! No doubt that these cohort of talents would be reaching their stardom soon.
Saranga is a professional beat boxing artist who serves in digital graphic media, performed various form of beatboxing technique like epenthesis, coarticulation, fricative etc. Whenever we listen to beatboxing expert, we always think how are they making these sounds? According to him it is like “nothing but simply talking with pressure.”
More importantly, the established stars of our country who performed in the event were, Ridma, Dhanith, Randhir, Supun, Reeni who are all known for their unique style of performance and hard work in reaching these stardom. They performed their favourites and requested songs from the audience. Best part is that, they try to give their maximum every time they perform. The fans of course, feel the goosebumps from their heartfelt performance!
The event concluded successfully by an extra ordinary performance from the artists. There were 450+ participants on zoom and 6.2k+ total views on Facebook live making this the biggest virtual musical show in this period. All in all, it was a very entertaining Saturday night where Escape successfully replaced the quarantine blues with quarantine rhapsody.
By Rtr. P. Krishanth : Email: krishanthprementhiraraja@yahoo.com
