page_title: U. Srinivas
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: U. Srinivas / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: Remember Shakti in Munich/Germany (2001): Shrinivas, McLaughlin, Selvaganesh Deutsch: Remember Shakti in München (2001): Shrinivas, McLaughlin, Selvaganesh
context_page_description: Uppalapu Srinivas was an Indian mandolin player in Carnatic classical music and composer. Because he was a child prodigy, he was sometimes called the Mozart of classical Indian music.
  He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1998, by the Government of India. He was also awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 2009 given by Sangeet Natak Akademi, which is the National Academy of Music, Dance & Drama, in India.
context_section_description: He made his debut public Carnatic concert performance in 1978 during the Thyagaraja Aradhana festival at Gudivada in Andhra Pradesh. Thereafter, at age eleven, in 1981, he gave his first public concert in Chennai at the Indian Fine Arts Society during the December Music Season, and never looked back. The skeptics were convinced and soon mesmerized, connoisseurs fell in love with him, and patrons of the arts could not have enough of him. At age eleven, a star was born, who was both revered and adored. He started off playing the acoustic mandolin, but he later switched to the electric mandolin as he felt it allowed the playing of lengthy, sustained notes - the quintessential component in classical Indian music - in addition to making them clearly audible. George Harrison's favorite piece of Indian music was Mandolin Ecstasy. "It was, like, my dad's favourite album of all time," says (Dhani) Harrison. "U Srinivas is 27 now and still making music. He plays an electric five-string mandolin, he's fantastic...." 
  Over his career, he toured across the world, and collaborated with John McLaughlin, Michael Nyman, and Michael Brook.
  He was the first musician to use the electric mandolin in Carnatic music: he modified the electric western instrument, using five single strings instead of the traditional four doubled strings to suit the Carnatic pitch, raga system, and especially gamakas, or nuanced oscillations. After initial reluctance, he found wide acceptance and critical acclaim in the following decades. Starting in 1982, he performed regularly during the December season of the prestigious Madras Music Academy, performing there every year except in 2002 - December 23 of each year was a reserved slot for U. Srinivas - the highest accolade. Srinivas stormed the world music scene at age thirteen at the Berlin Jazz Festival. Initially booked to play a half-hour concert after Miles Davis, Srinivas so enthralled the audience in Berlin that he won a standing ovation, and had to play for another hour. "He's got it in him. He's fantastic," raved the legendary Don Cherry at the time. Guitarist John McLaughlin first heard a tape of this concert by the thirteen-year-old prodigy, and was left very impressed. He played at the Olympic Arts Festival, Barcelona in 1992 and in 1995 recorded a successful fusion album with Michael Brook. When John McLaughlin revived his group Shakti, and renamed it Remember Shakti, in 1997, he asked Srinivas to join the group and tour the world with it, along with other celebrated Indian musicians Zakir Hussain, Shankar Mahadevan, and V. Selvaganesh. Srinivas, of course, was the undisputed superstar of the group. Srinivas toured extensively across the world, in his own right, as a prodigy and leading star from the classical Indian music firmament, receiving thunderous applause and appreciation wherever he performed - he played in Australia, Southeast Asia, Southwest Asia, and extensively and frequently across the United States and Canada. Soon, the mandolin became synonymous with Srinivas and he started being called Mandolin Srinivas. Thus, Srinivas stands as a trailblazer and pioneer, who introduced and adapted an unlikely western instrument, the mandolin, at age six, and made it suitable for performing in the rigorous Carnatic style of music, in the same manner that the violin had been introduced into Carnatic classical music some two hundred years before.
  His gifted younger brother, U. Rajesh, has studied with Srinivas for some twenty-seven years, and is also an accomplished mandolin player, who has often accompanied him at concerts over the last twenty years. He also plays jazz and western music, and played the mandolin in the John Mclaughlin album 'Floating Point' which received a Grammy nomination in the Best Contemporary Jazz Album Category in 2008. Srinivas and Rajesh have together composed music as well, and, besides Carnatic music, they have extensively worked on the fusion of Carnatic and western music. They also played with the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra, with French electric bass player Dominiq
caption: Remember Shakti Concert, Munich, Germany (2001)
  (left to right) U. Srinivas, John McLaughlin, V. Selvaganesh
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