බණ්ඩාර අතාවුද
16 songs performed
Bandara Athauda (also spelled Bandara Athawuda; බණ්ඩාර අතාවුද) is a Sri Lankan vocalist, violinist, and music lecturer whose warm, classically trained voice carried a run of light-music ballads from the 1970s onward. Trained first as an instrumentalist, he is remembered as much for decades of teaching as for songs such as “Sihinayaki Oba” and “Sithuwili Siravi”.
Athauda was born on 23 February 1948 in Ankumbura, in the Kandy district. He studied at Ankumbura Maha Vidyalaya before entering the government Heywood music school in Colombo in 1966, where he completed a five-year programme. The violin was his primary instrument, with flute and voice alongside it, and that grounding in classical practice shaped the disciplined, unhurried phrasing of his singing.
He served as a musician during army service and then moved into teaching, working at schools and teacher-training institutes in the Matale and Giragama areas. From 1985 to 2008 he was a senior lecturer in music at the government music institute at Polgolla, and in later years a visiting lecturer at the University of Peradeniya. The Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation graded him an ‘A’ class vocalist in the late 1960s, and in 2009 he received the Kalabushana national honour.
As a singer, Bandara Athawuda recorded for composers including Rohana Weerasinghe, Gunadasa Kapuge, and H. M. Jayawardena, to lyrics by writers such as Kusum Peiris and Rathna Sri Wijesinghe. Several of his recordings are duets, among them “Sihinayaki Oba” and “Kohee Yanneda”, performed with female vocalists of his era.
His catalogue leans toward tender, melodic numbers built around longing and quiet devotion. The following recordings by Bandara Athauda are featured on Lyrics-lk with Sinhala lyrics and English translation:
Across nearly five decades, Bandara Athauda combined a performing career with a long teaching life, training students at Polgolla and Peradeniya, including deaf and blind learners. His son, Buddhika Athauda, has continued in music as a singer and producer. For Sri Lankan listeners his songs remain gentle staples of the light-music repertoire, which is why “Bandara Athawuda” recordings such as “Sihinayaki Oba” still draw steady listens today.
Every Sinhala lyric, composition, and song credit by Bandara Athauda.