ප්රින්ස් උදය ප්රියන්ත
30 songs performed
Prince Udaya Priyantha (ප්රින්ස් උදය ප්රියන්ත, also written Prince Udayapriyantha) was a Sri Lankan singer, songwriter, and keyboard player whose romantic ballads of the 1990s and 2000s, among them Sanda Kumariyak Digeka and Sigiriye Kurutu Geetha, made him one of the most-played voices on the island’s live-stage and television music circuit.
He was born on 13 June 1970 in the village of Siripura, Nawadagala, in the Galle district of southern Sri Lanka. His father, Eaton Fernando, was a violinist at the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation as well as a school principal and music teacher, so Prince Udaya Priyantha grew up around instruments and music instruction. He studied at Elpitiya Ananda Maha Vidyalaya, where he began performing, and from 1990 trained at the Belwood Music Academy run by the National Youth Services Council.
He started out in the early 1990s as a keyboard player and stage musician before stepping forward as a vocalist. His breakthrough came in 1992 with Sanda Kumariyak Digeka Yanawa, the song that established him on open stages and on the television music programmes that drove popular Sinhala music in that era.
Across a steady run of albums he built a catalogue of unhurried love songs. Prince Udayapriyantha’s work is the centre of records such as the Sigiriye Kurutu Gee album, which carries Me Ahasa Pura, Mama Kurulu Pemwathek, and Kala Male Kohe Giyado. He also recorded a duet album, Liyathambara Mala, with the singer Chandana Liyanarachchi.
His best-known recordings lean on tender, melody-led arrangements and themes of love, longing, and parting. The site features a wide selection of his work:
He never married, and in interviews spoke of a relationship with the singer Nirosha Virajini that did not lead to marriage. He died on 8 June 2017 at Nawaloka Hospital in Colombo, days short of his 47th birthday, after illness. Among Sri Lankan listeners and the Sinhala diaspora his ballads remain firmly in the wedding-and-nostalgia rotation, and titles like Adarei Kiya Mage Dasata and Amma Dilena keep his name searched a decade after his death.
Every Sinhala lyric, composition, and song credit by Prince Udaya Priyantha.