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. 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. Concert,
Munich,
Germany (2001)(left to right) U. Srinivas, John McLaughlin,
V. Selvaganesh 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. Starting in 1982, he performed regularly during the December season of the prestigious
Madras Music Academy, performing there every year except in 2002 - 23 December of each year was a reserved slot for U. Srinivas - the highest accolade. Srinivas performed at age thirteen at the
Berlin Jazz Festival. Initially booked to play a half-hour concert after
Miles Davis, Srinivas won a standing ovation, and had to play for another hour. "He's got it in him. He's fantastic," said 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 studied with Srinivas for some 27 years and is also an accomplished mandolin player who often accompanied him at concerts during the last 20 years of his life. 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. U. Srinivas started a music school called the Srinivas Institute of World Music (SIOWM) in Chennai, where, since he was barely eighteen, he taught a number of students gratis. Srinivas has trained almost a hundred students worldwide, many of whom have studied with him and U. Rajesh for as long as ten years. U. Rajesh continues teaching their students at the SIOWM. ==Instrument==