මිල්ටන් මල්ලවාරච්චි
155 songs performed
Milton Mallawarachchi (මිල්ටන් මල්ලවආරච්චි, also spelled Milton Mallawaarachchi), born Sumanasiri Mallawarachchi Don, was a Sri Lankan singer, composer, and film playback singer who became one of the most loved voices of Sinhala popular music from the late 1960s onward. His warm, romantic tenor carried hundreds of songs across more than three decades, and several remain wedding and radio standards to this day.
Mallawarachchi was born on 7 April (1944 by the English Wikipedia, 1945 by some Sinhala sources) in Kotte, and was educated at Ananda Sastralaya, Kotte. He was a capable instrumentalist, playing tabla, sitar, and guitar, before his singing took over. His early performing years were spent with the groups the Sakyans and then the La Ceylonians, and it was his work with the latter that drew the attention of producers and opened the door to a recording career.
His breakthrough came in 1969 with “Oruwaka Pawena” (ඔරුවක පාවෙන), produced by Patrick Corea, one of the last 78 rpm record sets pressed in Sri Lanka. By the early 1970s he had reached Grade A status with the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation and was singing regularly for radio and film. He recorded songs by many of the island’s leading songwriters, among them Karunaratne Abeysekara, Premakeerthi de Alwis, Clarence Wijewardena, and Patrick Denipitiya.
Mallawarachchi also worked extensively as a playback singer, contributing to a large number of films from the 1971 picture Poojithayo onward. In 1984 he won the Sarasaviya Award for Best Playback Singer for Kandan Yannam, a song from the film Aethin Aethata.
One of his most cherished recordings is Atha Epita Dura Akase (ඈත එපිට දුර ආකාසේ), a Karunaratne Abeysekara composition he sang as a tribute to his wife, Swarna. The song’s image of a distant golden star is among the lines Sri Lankan listeners most associate with his voice.
Mallawarachchi died on 10 March 1998 in Colombo. His eldest son, Ranil Mallawarachchi, became a popular singer in his own right and continues to perform his father’s catalogue. The romantic directness of Milton Mallawaarachchi’s songs, paired with melodies by the era’s finest composers, keeps his recordings in steady rotation among Sri Lankan listeners and the diaspora.
Every Sinhala lyric, composition, and song credit by Milton Mallawarachchi.