<P> Uppalapu Srinivas (28 February 1969--19 September 2014) was an Indian mandolin player in Carnatic classical music and composer . He was widely regarded as the Mozart of classical Indian music . </P> <P> 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 . </P> <P> Srinivas was born 28 February 1969, in Palakollu in Andhra Pradesh . At the age of five, he picked up his father U. Satyanarayana's mandolin, after he heard it being played at a concert he attended with his father . Upon realizing the talent of his son, his father, who had studied classical music, bought him a new mandolin, and started teaching him . Guitarist Vasu Rao, introduced seven - year - old Srinivas to western music in 1976 . Soon, Satyanarayana's guru, Rudraraju Subbaraju, (disciple of Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavathar) who had also taught Srinivas' father and Vasu Rao, recognized the astounding potential in the child Srinivas and started teaching him . Since Rudraraju Subbaraju did not know how to play the mandolin, he would just sing pieces from the Carnatic classical repertoire, and U. Srinivas, all of six, would play them on the mandolin, thus developing a phenomenal style of playing entirely his own, and astonishingly, on an instrument that had never been played in the rigorous and difficult Carnatic style before . Soon, the family moved to Chennai, the mecca of Carnatic music, where most Carnatic musicians live . When Srinivas gave his first performance it led to him being compared to the world's greatest prodigies: "Some of you have heard or read about exceptionally gifted children, our own Mandolin Srinivas, Sir Yehudi Menuhin, Beethoven, Sir Isaac Newton, Picasso, Madam Curie, the list is endless ." </P> <P> At a very young age he was internationally viewed as the successor to Pandit Ravi Shankar </P>

Who is the childhood prodigy who mastered the mandolin