Pradeep Ratnayake is engaged in an effort to give a new identity to his sitar – a Sri Lankan identity which can hold its own in the international world of music.  His experimentation and research have given him the ability to shake his instrument out of its traditional context and give it a new soul. 

He has been nurtured and nourished by many cultures, but has as his foundation, melodies of his country which he weaves into the heart of most of his compositions. His original compositions, are seeking a new sound, are seeking to take to the world a music that is both Sri Lankan and international. 

In his music, as you hear melodies taken from the folk songs of his people or from the complex and rich tradition of dance in his country, you will also catch strains of other music traditions of the world, like the classical, jazz and the rock, for in all he has managed to find a beauty that inspires and unites.  More..>>

Pradeep Ratnayake is Sri Lanka’s most exciting musician to emerge in the last decade. both as performer and composer. Placed within a global perspective he comes across as a virtuoso who has pushed the sitar beyond its traditional limits. This delicate instrument with its subtle crochets and quavers and the almost undecipherable shrutis of the Indian scale remained for centuries closeted in the chamber of the Maharajas. It was the legendary Ravi Shanker who brought it to the concert stage. Now, a frail and impossibly boyish looking Sri Lankan performer takes it beyond to make it sing, cavort, leap and dance like a jazz instrument. The sitar holds hands and on its own terms with the boom of the traditional eastern drums, the swing of the western rhythm guitar, and the snaking sinuous phrases pouring from a saxophone..

One has to watch Pradeep perform to feel the raw unbridled energy bursting forth from an instrument which seems to have lost all its courtly inhibitions and drops veil after veil, but never loses musical decorum and impeccable artistry.

Beyond everything, it is sheer great music.

Tissa Abeysekara (Distinguished Sri Lankan film director and writer)

"You have heard glorious music.  As you can see Pradeep is a person of enormous talent and I am sure one day would be the Ravi Shankar of Sri Lanka .  .  .  .

Pradeepanjalee means the offering of your own self.  Pradeep is offering his entire self – and not just his music to the audience.  And it is when that happens that the vibrating string of the sitar, the soul of the raga and the soul of the musician are one.  Then your soul – your mind is coloured by vibrant and incandescent colour.  And that is the essence of the music."

Nirupam Sen
From the speech delivered by His Excellency, the  High Commissioner of India,  at Pradeepanjalee VII.  He is now the Indian Ambassador to the United Nations.