Fusion Music By Sivamani & U Srinivas

The Times Of India is organising a 9-day Hyderabad festival  from 28th January to 5th February at different venues across the city. On 3rd February, India's premier percussionist Sivamani will perform fusion music along with the renowned Mandolin player U Srinivas at the Rock Heights, Shilparamam.



Sivamani



Anandan Sivamani, popularly known as Sivamani, is an Indian percussionist. He plays many instruments including drums, octoban, darbuka, udukai and kanjira. He began drumming at the age of 7 years, and started his musical career at the age of 11, and later shifted to Mumbai. He was inspired by Noel Grant and Billy Cobham.



Sivamani's earliest experiments in music were with Carnatic maestros including Kunnakudi Vaidyanathan, T V Gopalakrishnan, Valliyapatti Subramaniam and Pazhanivel, and L Shankar. Renowned tabla player Zakir Hussain invited him to share the stage with himself and Trilok Gurtu at a fusion concert in Mumbai.



Sivamani has since collaborated with several musicians including Louis Banks. He has done world tours with A R Rahman, and collaborated with him for Bombay Dreams. He has also been a part of a musical group called Shraddha, which comprises of Shankar Mahadevan, Hariharan, U Srinivas and Loy Mendonsa.



Shivamani has a music band named "Asia Electrik" with Nilathri Kumar, Louiz Banks and Ravi Chari. He also plays at another world music band named "Silk & Shrada". Sivamani has played the drums for many notable film score composers hailing from Tamil Nadu including A R Rahman and Ilayaraja, and for many Indian films including Roja, Rang De Basanti, Taal, Lagaan, Dil Se, Guru and Kabul Express.



U Srinivas



Srinivas was born in Palakollu (Andhra Pradesh). At the age of 6, he started playing his father Satyanarayana's mandolin, and upon realising the talent of his son, his father started teaching him. Soon, Satyanarayana's guru, Rudraraju Subbaraju, realized the potential of Srinivas and started teaching him. Since Rudraraju Subbaraju did not know how to play the mandolin, he would just sing and Srinivas would play it on the mandolin. His brother Rajesh is also an accomplished mandolin player.



Srinivas made his first public Carnatic concert performance in 1978 in Gudivada, Andhra Pradesh, during the Thyagaraja Aradhana festival. Soon, he came to perform at the Madras Music Season in 1981 for the Indian Fine Arts Society. In 1983, he performed at the JazzFest Berlin where the audience requested him to do a repeat performance. He continued touring the world playing in Australia, Southeast Asia, the United States and Canada.



Srinivas has performed with western artists such as John McLaughlin, Michael Brook, Nigel Kennedy, Nana Vasconcelos, and Michael Nyman, as well as with Hindustani music artists such as Hariprasad Chaurasia and Zakir Hussain. He has recorded a CD of Carnatic compositions by Ilaiyaraaja called Ilaiyaraaja's Classics in mandolin. Recently, U Srinivas also released "Samjanitha" featuring John McLaughlin, Zakir Hussain, Sivamani, George Brook, U Rajesh, Anil Srinivasan and others. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1998 and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 2010.



Entry to all the events is by free invitations, available at The Times Of India office on road no. 2, Banjara Hills, and at Music World outlets. Please contact 6527-7755 for invitations and further details.