Tanya Ekanayaka (1977)
Tanya Ekanayaka was born in Sri Lanka and began studying piano with her mother at the age of five. She made her public debut at twelve and performed a Mozart Piano Concerto with the Symphony Orchestra of Sri Lanka at sixteen. She has a BA in English literature and linguistics from the University of Peradeniya, a Master of Science from the University of Edinburgh, and a Doctorate from there for her interdisciplinary research in linguistics and musicology.
Tanya Ekanayaka composes exclusively for solo piano and performs her own music. According to her website, “her compositions are entirely unscored but instead reside naturally and precisely frozen in her memory once evolved.” This is her 2010 composition Adahas: of Wings of Roots: