Taking Sri Lankan Music to the World: Dilanjan Seneviratne on Yohani’s Historic Ziro Festival Performance

Sri Lankan singer Yohani is set to perform at the 13th edition of the Ziro Festival of Music in Arunachal Pradesh, India, joining a line-up of 41 acts from more than 10 countries.

The performance will see Yohani present her original music, predominantly in Sinhala, to an international audience at one of India's established independent music festivals.

For Dilanjan Seneviratne, Founder and CEO of Colombo-based entertainment company Outright Play, the appearance represents another milestone in a journey that began with Yohani's viral success in 2021.

Outright Play has managed the singer's career since its early stages, overseeing her transition from viral recognition to an international music career while developing an integrated management, publishing and production operation in Sri Lanka.

Ahead of the performance, the Colombo Gazette spoke to Seneviratne about the significance of the festival, building a sustainable international career, retaining ownership of intellectual property and creating opportunities for the next generation of Sri Lankan artists.

Excerpts from the interview:

Q: Yohani is scheduled to perform at the Ziro Festival of Music this week. What does this opportunity represent for her career and for Outright Play?

It means a lot. I'll try not to dress it up. Ziro is in its 13th edition, with 41 acts and artists from more than 10 countries, and she's walking on stage with her own songs, mostly in Sinhala.

That hasn't happened before, not at this level. But honestly, the part that moves me isn't the stage. It's that nobody's surprised she's there.

Five years ago, this would have been a miracle story. Now it's a booking. That shift, from miracle to normal, is the whole point of what we do.

Q: For audiences unfamiliar with the Ziro Festival of Music, how would you describe its scale and significance within India's independent music industry?

Bigger than I think we're used to processing here.

It's one of India's most respected independent festivals, running since 2012 and staged in a valley in Arunachal Pradesh on the lands of the Apatani community.

This edition drew coverage from The Indian Express, NDTV, Outlook Traveller and Rolling Stone India before a note had been played.

Artists come from Algeria, Ireland, Palestine, Korea and all over. And in that field of 41 acts, the Sri Lankan is the one leading the international story.

I don't want to inflate it. I also don't want us to do the thing we always do, which is shrink it. This is a first. We should sit with that for a moment before we move on.

Q: Yohani gained widespread recognition across India following the success of "Manike Mage Hithe" in 2021. How has her team worked to translate that initial success into a sustained international career?

Because we didn't chase the moment.

A viral hit is loud, and the temptation is to stay loud. We went quiet instead.

Made albums. "Kella", then "Aadarei", now "Sadde". Toured properly. Built real relationships in India rather than extracting attention from it.

India doesn't owe any outside artist a second look, and I've always respected that. You earn the second look with new work.

Five years later, the market that discovered her is the market inviting her back. That tells me we read it right. Or we were lucky in the right direction. Probably some of both.

Q: Yohani's performance will feature her original catalogue, predominantly in Sinhala. What informed the decision to retain her linguistic and musical identity rather than adapt her repertoire to Hindi or English-speaking audiences?

I understand why artists adapt to the market, and I don't judge it.

We just decided a long time ago that the thing that made her interesting was that she sounds like where she's from.

If you sand that off to fit in, you fit in, and then you disappear.

Sinhala at Ziro isn't a statement of defiance. It's just her, doing her songs, the way they were written.

If it lands as historic, that says more about how long the door was closed than about how loudly we're walking through it.

Q: Securing a place at an international festival involves considerably more than an artist's popularity. What commercial, operational and industry infrastructure is required to create opportunities of this nature for Sri Lankan musicians?

Years of unglamorous work that nobody claps for.

A booking like this is the last visible inch of a very long structure. It's albums finished to international specification.

It's owning the catalogue. We structured her masters and publishing globally with Reservoir Media so that, when the world calls, the artist answers as an owner, not a tenant.

It's a company in Colombo doing management, label, publishing, studio, media and live production under one roof, because none of it existed here and we got tired of waiting.

I learned patience the hard way: infrastructure is boring until the day it's everything. Ziro is that day.

Q: Outright Play is expanding its artist roster beyond Yohani. What is the company's long-term vision, and how do you intend to create similar international opportunities for emerging Sri Lankan talent?

Yohani proved it could be done once. The roster is about proving it wasn't a one-off.

SANA is the clearest example. Eighteen years old, debut album, original songs, her own identity, and a company around her treating her career as a long project rather than a moment.

The mission is simple to say and hard to do: the next Sri Lankan artist shouldn't need a miracle.

Talent should be enough, because the system finally exists.

We're not fully there yet. But a week like this one makes it feel less like a theory.

Q: Looking beyond this particular performance, what lessons can Sri Lanka's music industry draw from Yohani's international career, particularly in developing artists and taking original Sri Lankan music to global audiences?

The world isn't waiting for us, but it isn't against us either.

It's indifferent, and indifference is beaten by excellence, repeated.

This week, a girl from here stands in a valley in the Himalayas and sings in Sinhala to people who have never heard the language, and they will listen, because the work is good.

That's the whole lesson.

Being from here was never the limitation. Most days, it's the material.