උපේකා නිර්මානි
19 songs performed
Upeka Nirmani (also spelled Upekha Nirmani, උපේකා නිර්මාණි) is a Sri Lankan playback and stage singer from Negombo who became the first female winner of a Sri Lankan television talent show when she took the title of Derana Dream Star Season 2 in 2010. She is best known to a wide audience for teledrama theme songs, including her work on the long-running serial Deweni Inima.
Upeka Nirmani grew up in Negombo in a musical family. She is the daughter of the singer Chandu de Silva, popularly known by the affectionate name “Jolly Seeya”, and music was part of her household from an early age. She was eighteen when she entered the second season of Derana’s televised singing competition.
Her breakthrough came in 2010, when she won Derana Dream Star Season 2 on TV Derana. The win was a milestone for the show, as she was the first woman to be crowned across its seasons, and it launched her into studio and playback work. In the years that followed she became a familiar voice on teledrama soundtracks, the strand of Sri Lankan music where a single theme song can reach a nightly television audience for years.
A large part of the work hosted on Lyrics-lk comes from this teledrama era. Bambarek Awilla and Supem Wee Sithina are tied to the hit serial Deweni Inima, while Me Heene Payawi is the theme for Dangale and Man Dutu Heeneki serves as the Apeksha theme.
Upekha Nirmani’s catalogue spans drama themes and standalone love songs. Her recordings have drawn on writers and composers active in the contemporary Sinhala scene: Supem Wee Sithina pairs lyrics by Shehan Galahitiyawa with music by Nimesh Kulasinghe, while Sihina Adare was written by Nalinda Sampath Liyanage and composed by Suresh De Silva. Other widely shared titles include Api Wenuwen Api Aye and Pivithuru Sithak Aran.
As the first woman to win Derana Dream Star, Upeka Nirmani holds a notable place in the history of Sri Lankan reality-show music, and her steady output of teledrama themes has kept her voice in regular rotation with television audiences and the diaspora. Lyrics-lk presents her songs in the original Sinhala script alongside English transliteration and translation, so that listeners who came in through a teledrama theme can read the meaning behind the words.
Every Sinhala lyric, composition, and song credit by Upeka Nirmani.