About Me
He was born at Palakol in West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh February 28, 1969. At the age of six, his parents found him playing on his father's mandolin. Inspired by the boy's interest in music, Satyanarayana, his father, taught him to play the instrument and Shrinivas began playing light music.Subbaraju was a disciple of the famous musical stalwart Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavathar. He had no experience on the mandolin, so he would sing Carnatic music and Shrinivas would play it on the mandolin. The young musician developed his own style.Shrinivas got his first big break in Gudivada in Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh at the age of nine during the Sri Tyagaraja Aradhana festival.He first performed a concert at the Indian Fine Arts Society in Chennai during the musical festival in December 1981.In the year 1983, at the West Berlin Jazz festival, he had the privilege of giving a repeat performance, which was telecast live by a German TV.At the invitation of the Sydney Tamil Sangham, he went to Australia in 1984, and then to south east and south west Asia, the US and Canada. At the festival of India in Paris, he was allotted one hour to play on the instrument. But when the concluded the concert, the audience forced the organisers to extend his programme by another hour.In 1983, the Music Academy honoured him with the 'Special TTK Award'.The boy reached dizzying heights in mastering the mandolin, far surpassing what he learnt from his guru. Listeners were swept away in the flood of neatly executed touches and rhythmic patterns coming from the prodigy's fingers. Everyone forgot the instrument he was playing and gave themselves up to the sensation, the sheer joy of listening to the mellifluous melody that flowed out of the instrument!At Mexico and CubaIn October 1987, Shrinivas toured Mexico and Cuba and participated in the Cevantino Festival at Mexico. He was the first Carnatic musician to visit Cuba and the first south Indian Carnatic musician to have participated in this festival. Paloma, the wife of the Mexican President, who had intended to make a brief 10-minute appearance for the sake of formality, was so captivated by the music that she stayed back for an entire hour.Olympic Arts Festival at BarcelonaThere were artistes from 60 countries and Shrinivas was the only one from India. The duration of the concert was 45 minutes. One has to stop at the 44th minute, but the minute Shrinivas stopped, the 9,000-strong audience started clamouring "once more" and he was accorded a standing ovation. So, the organisers relented and gave him another 10 minutes.Fusion AlbumsDreamDream, a mix of classical Indian music, electric mandolin and soaring electric guitar creates a worldly fusion of ragas, progressive rock and ambient/techno, a musical fever dream accented with other oddities, from violin and cello to drum loops. It is highly improvisational, with Michael Brook contributing King Crimsonish guitar against Shrinivas' nimble runs on the mandolin.Shrinivas, with his depth of musical skill and knowledge, has brought forth his own composition, 'Srujana' (Sindhu Bhairavi - Tisra Nadai), which is a lively 'Note', resembling the western noted structure.His goal in life is to popularise Carnatic music all over the world through his mandolin. With his rich classical background, he also aims at propagating music globally through mandolin concerts.
