Umaria Sinhawansa

Umaria Binthy Ayesha Sinhawansa (උමාරියා සිංහවංශ, born 5 January 1991), popularly referred to by the mononym Umaria, is a Sri Lankan pop, R&B and jazz singer.

She is the youngest musician to be ever awarded A-Grade by Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation.

She has won the 'Kala Keerthi Abhimani' award for her contribution to Sri Lanka's music industry.

Umaria Sinhawansa was born 5 January 1991, in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

She is the daughter of Tony Sinhawansa and Ayesha Sinhawansa who were musicians and Umaria was exposed to music early in her life.

Umaria studied at Muslim Ladies College and Gateway International school, Colombo, Sri Lanka.

She graduated BA Honours degree In Music and She has diploma in Interior Designing and Videography.

She has two older brothers, Subandrio, and Hharthono.

Hharthono is also a music producer & entrepreneur.

Her older sister Umara Sinhawansa is also a musician.

Umaria's grandmother Rani Perera, was an actress in Sri Lankan cinema.

She is also a granddaughter of the late songstress and actress Rukmani Devi.

By age 11, Umaria became serious about pursuing a music career, where she performed with her sister Umara for a large audience and that was her entry into the professional music industry.

When she was in school, she learned to sing Arabic.

Then she did few songs with Sri Lankan music producer Sri Shyamalangan.

She later joined with popular music duo Bathiya and Santhush (BnS) for a song of the Arabic genre which is called Shaheena.

After the song, she collaborated with BnS again for the film playback Pathu Pem Pathum for the film Asai Man Piyabanna.

The song became a super hit and made her turning point of the career.

Umaria began her music career at age 11 in the 2005, performing with her sister at various stages.

She made her debut as a playback singer in the film Asai Man Piyabanna.

And also she has won silver awards at Pan Asia Music International Music Competition and the Crimea Music Fest international competition.

In 2007, she became the youngest singer to ever be nominated for the Best Female Playback Singer at Sarasaviya Awards.

Then she voiced for films, TV commercials, and teledrama theme songs.

In 2009, she voiced the theme song for the television serial Gehenu Lamai.

Her second song was "Gum Nade" for the movie Rosa Kele and both songs were commercially successful.

In 2010, aged 16, Umaria participated in an International Singing Competition, Pan Asia Music Festival 2010 representing Sri Lanka, which was held in Beijing, China.

In the competition, she sang "Hello" by Adele and "Listen" by Beyoncé.

She later won the first place from semi-finals and she was able to win Silver medal from the whole competition.

Then she was invited again to an international competition, which was in Turkey, where she was the only Asian contestant.

In that competition, she won the bronze medal.

After the competition, a Swedish record label joined with Umaria for many singles.

Later she participated in the Crimea Music Fest in Ukraine with her sister.

They both did an original song named My Dreams, and they remade the song, Halo by Beyoncé.

Later, they won third palace from that competition.

In 2010, Sinhawansa had performed on International Indian Film Academy Awards (IIFA Awards) with BnS.

She also shared the same stage with Indian musicians, Asha Bhosle and Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy.

In 2020, her single "Manda Pama" was a super hit in Sri Lanka and reached 10 million views in a very short time.

She was listed among the most viewed female artists on YouTube with 22 million views.

And she is the most followed Sri Lanka singer on Instagram.

She received "Aya Pranama Award" for her contribution to the music and was awarded the 2021 SLIM-Nielsen Peoples Awards for the song of the year 2021.