Sriram Parasuram

Sriram Parasuram is one of India’s leading violinists, with an extensive career spanning performance, scholarship, composition, and cross-cultural collaboration. He began learning the violin at the age of four and gave his first public performance at eight. Since then, he has presented over 3,000 violin solo concerts across India and internationally. He is also regarded as one of India’s foremost accompanists, having accompanied leading vocalists of multiple generations.

His primary guru was his mother, Smt. Parvathy Parasuram. He later trained under eminent Carnatic musicians, including Sangeetha Kalanidhi K. S. Narayanaswamy, Prof. T. N. Krishnan, T. Viswanathan, S. R. Janakiraman, Krishnamurthy Bhagavathar, and Vaidyanatha Bhagavathar. In Hindustani music, he trained under Padmabhushan Pandit C. R. Vyas and later received advanced guidance from Padmabhushan Pandit Rajan Misra.

In 1981, he received the President of India Gold Medal for both Carnatic and Hindustani violin at the All India Radio competitions, a rare distinction. He is among the few artists to be graded A-grade in both systems by AIR and Doordarshan.

Sriram Parasuram was awarded the Firestone Fellowship in 1989 to study Western classical violin in the United States. He completed his Master of Music in Western Violin Performance from the University of Akron, Ohio, followed by a Ph.D. in World Music from Wesleyan University. In addition to his music education, he holds a mechanical engineering degree from VJTI, University of Bombay, and an MBA from IIM Calcutta.

His honors include the Ustad Amir Khan Award, Bharat Ratna M. S. Subbulakshmi Award, the D. K. Pattammal Memorial Award, and titles such as Naadakanal, Surmani, Isaijyoti, and Sangeeta Kala Bhaarati. He received an honorary doctorate from Sathyabhama University in 2012. The music organization Mudhra conferred upon him the title “Gnyana Samudhra” in 2013, and Saraswati Gana Sabha awarded him “Saraswati Sangeeta Seva Ratna” in 2014.

As a musicologist, he has published research papers in reputed journals and has delivered lectures and lecture-demonstrations at major music conferences, sabhas, and universities worldwide. He has won the Best Paper/Lecture Demonstration Award at the Madras Music Academy Annual Conference a record five times.

Beyond classical music, Sriram Parasuram has worked in jazz, popular music, and intercultural collaborations involving traditions such as Javanese Gamelan, West African drumming, and Japanese Koto. His Hindi pop album “Savariya,” with the group Three Brothers and a Violin, won the Screen Videocon Award for Best Composer and Best Album (2000). He has also directed and performed live orchestral scores for silent films, including “The Light of Asia” (1924) and “Shiraaz” (1928).

He has served as Executive Director of SAMPRADAYA, a Ford Foundation institution dedicated to research and archiving South Indian music traditions, and is a Director at Karadi Tales, producing and composing music and educational content for children. He has also composed music for the Tamil feature film “Five Star,” directed by Mani Ratnam.

In recent years, along with his wife, Anooradha Sriram, he has developed a distinctive Carnatic-Hindustani jugalbandhi concert format that has been widely performed internationally. Together, they conceptualized and presented the Doordarshan television series “Ellaame Sangeetham Thaan,” which completed over 120 episodes and received the Best Music Programme on TV award from the Tamil Nadu Arts Academy in 2011 and 2012.