Uppalapu Shrinivas Biography 
Uppalapu Shrinivas is an Indian mandolin player of the Carnatic musical tradition. He plays an electric mandolin and has collaborated with many great names of the music world worldwide. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1998 and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 2010, for his contributions to music. Sangeeta Ratna, Sanatan Sangeet Puraskar from Sangeet Sanskriti, Sangeetha Bala Bhaskara by Sangeetha Kalanidhi M.S. Subbulakshmi, Rajiv Gandhi National Integration Award, Best Artist Award by the Madras Music Academy in 1993, Asthana Vidwan of Govt. of Tamil Nadu in July 1984, Special TTK Award in 1983, Mysore T. Chowdiah Memorial National Award and Raja-Lakshmi Award for 1985 are the other major honours received by him.
Shrinivas was born February 28, 1969, in Palakol in Andhra Pradesh as the son of a mandolin player, Satyanarayana. He started playing mandolin at the age of 6. Realizing his talent, his father gave him formal training in this instrument. Later he received training from his father’s guru - Rudraraju Subbaraju. Actually Rudraraju Subbaraju was a Carnatic singer and he doesn’t know how to read mandolin. He used to sing a song based on raga and young Shrinivas used to play it in mandolin. His brother U. Rajesh is also an accomplished mandolin player.
He made his first public performance in 1978 in Gudivada during the Thyagaraja Aradhana festival. He performed at Madras Music Season in 1981 for the Indian Fine Arts Society and in 1983 he performed at the JazzFest Berlin. He was appreciated worldwide and has conducted tours in several regions of Asia, Canada, Australia, and US. He performed at Olympics Arts Festival at Barcelona, 1992. He is known for his collaboration with John McLaughlin, Michael Nyman, and Michael Brook.
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Updated: January 16, 2014
