SRIMAL WEERASINGHE

Chief Conductor of the Gustav Mahler Orchestra
Director of the Gustav Mahler Society of Colombo
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Sri Lankan born Conductor-Educator, Srimal Weerasinghe was born in 1998, and currently holds office as the Chief Conductor and Music Director of Sri Lanka’s most prestigious Orchestra and institution for Western Classical Music, the Gustav Mahler Orchestra of Colombo and the Gustav Mahler Society of Colombo.

He also holds several other conducting positions in the country as Conductor of the National Youth Orchestra of Sri Lanka, Associate Music Director of the Barbara Segal Opera International, Resident Conductor of the Colombo Wind Orchestra, and is a Visiting Faculty member at the University of Visual and Performing Arts, Sri Lanka for Orchestration, Orchestral Studies and Stage Performance.

“It has always been Mahler! His music and life always have been, and is, the source of energy and inspiration for me, along every step of the way…”


His love for Mahler’s music eventually led him to make history at a very young age of 20, by being the first conductor to conduct Mahler in Sri Lanka and went on to conduct several other Sri Lankan and South Asian premières of Mahler’s music.

Weerasinghe also takes great pleasure in commissioning and conducting new works of Sri Lankan composers which is a vital aspect towards building up repertoire by Sri Lankan composers.


His teachers include Mr. Manilal Weerakoon, Maestro Naoki Sugiyama, Miyuki Funatsu and Late Mr. Dayananda Fernando.

He highly appreciates the immense support given to him by his parents, his best friends Vidhurinda, Rachel, Amanda, Ms. Naomi Kunimoto, Mrs. Ushitha Samarakoon, Ms. Megumi Sato and past Japanese music volunteers to Sri Lanka, British soprano Barbara Segal at various stages of his career.

Alumnus of S. Thomas' College Mount Lavinia and Royal College, Colombo-07, as he started his music at the age of 10 studying piano under Mrs. Priyanthi Perera. His roots in Orchestral Music go back to his time at the Thomian Chamber Orchestra in 2009 as a Descant Recorder player, and later as an Oboist. He is a multiple time winner at several competitions in Woodwind Performance. He took up the Oboe when he joined the National Youth Orchestra of Sri Lanka in 2010, where he received a strong foundation in orchestral performance. Back in his days as a student at Royal College, he was able to revive the Royal College Western Orchestra, after a 11-year hiatus, and mould the orchestra to be an award-winning school orchestra which has retained its top position among other school orchestras for 6 consecutive years.

He served as Principal Oboe with more than 10 local and foreign Orchestras over the course of a decade, prior to stepping down from these positions in order to fully commit his time towards conducting and teaching.

Weerasinghe soundly believes that music should be available to all regardless of circumstances and not just for the “Colombo-elite”. He co-founded the Gustav Mahler Society of Colombo along with his lifelong friends, Vidhurinda Samaraweera, Rachel Halliday, and Amanda Halliday, aiming at creating accessible grounds for Western Classical Music in Sri Lanka, make quality music education available for all, while breaking the barriers that have limited its reach to a few pockets of Colombo.

He is determined to reform, revitalize and to take the Western Classical Music in Sri Lanka to new heights with the Gustav Mahler Society of Colombo.