H.W. Rupasingha

H.W. Rupasinghe (එච්. ඩබ්ලිව්. රූපසිංහ; also spelled H.W. Rupasingha) was a Sri Lankan music director and vocal teacher of the gramophone era, best remembered as the His Master’s Voice (HMV) musician who discovered and trained the singer and actress Rukmani Devi in the late 1930s.

Career at His Master’s Voice

Rupasinghe worked at the His Master’s Voice label, the gramophone company that recorded much of Sri Lanka’s earliest commercial Sinhala music. In October 1938 he was introduced to the young performer who would become Rukmani Devi, and, recognising her voice, he chose her for one of the label’s early releases. Accounts of the period credit “Rupasinghe Master” with shaping her into a classical singer through the vocal training he gave her, and one tradition holds that he created the stage name Rukmani Devi itself.

Songs and collaborations

As both performer and composer, Rupasingha is associated with devotional and Buddhist-themed recordings of the early Sinhala catalogue. He composed and sang Sri Rahula, set to verse by S. Mahinda Thero, and as a lyricist he is credited on Siri Budhdha Gaya Vihare, a recording carried by Amaradeva and Rukmani Devi.

Notable songs on Lyrics-lk

• Sri Rahula
• Mawipiya Adi
• Adu Kale

H.W. Rupasinghe’s lasting place in Sri Lankan music rests less on a long solo discography than on his role behind the microphone: as a teacher and HMV music man, he helped set the early recorded sound of Sinhala song and launched one of its most beloved voices.