සෙව්වන්දි රණතුංග
5 songs performed
Sewwandi Ranathunga (also spelled Sewwandi Ranatunga, සෙව්වන්දි රණතුංග) is a Sri Lankan playback and stage vocalist who comes from one of the country’s best known musical families. She is recognised for her gentle, measured singing voice and for a small but well loved catalogue of duets and solo numbers performed across two decades on Sri Lankan television and concert stages.
Sewwandi Ranathunga was born into a household steeped in music. Her father was the late Wijeratne Ranathunga, a respected tabla player, composer, and senior music lecturer, and her mother is the vocalist Visharada Nirmala Ranathunga. Her wider family is woven through Sri Lankan music: one of her sisters, the singer Niranjala Sarojini, was married to the playback singer Abeywardena Balasuriya, and the family is also connected by marriage to the composer and singer Sanath Nandasiri.
She was educated at Musaeus College in Colombo and began performing at around the age of thirteen, learning closely from her mother. One of her early recordings was a duet with her mother, which she continued to perform as a solo piece at concerts.
Sewwandi Ranathunga built her reputation as a regular performer on Sri Lankan television channels and at live concerts rather than as a high volume recording artist. She has appeared alongside several leading backing bands and has kept her repertoire within the warm, melodic register that suits her voice. Among her recorded work, the duet “Sudu Pichcha Mal” with Theekshana Anuradha is one of her most circulated songs.
Her mother, Nirmala Ranathunga, remains a touchstone in her musical life, and Sewwandi has carried forward songs associated with her family on stage.
Across her career Sewwandi Ranatunga has been described as a modest, unhurried singer who performs within her natural range rather than chasing trends. For Sri Lankan listeners at home and in the diaspora, her songs sit comfortably within a family tradition of classically grounded Sinhala vocal music, and pages like this one present her lyrics in Sinhala script with English translation and meaning so the songs travel with their context.
Every Sinhala lyric, composition, and song credit by Sewwandi Ranathunga.