Echampati Gayathri, popularly known as "Veena Gayathri" (born on November 9, 1959) is a veena exponent of the traditional Carnatic music E.Gayathri was born on 9 November 1959 to Kamala Aswathama, a veteran veena vidushi and late G. Aswathama, a popular film music director in the Telugu film industry. Gayathri first trained under her parents and later on from Sangita Kalanidhi T.M.Thyagarajan who was a renowned Carnatic vocalist and composer. Gayathri began her career at the age of 9 when Sri Parthasarathy Swami Sabha, Triplicane invited her to perform in their Saint Thyagaraja Festival in the year 1968. Her performance was a success in front of an audience of musicologists and music experts. She was instantly hailed as a child prodigy by none other than the well known musicologist, P. Sambamoorthy. Gayathri went on to receive innumerable awards and titles from reputed organisations in India and abroad. Gayathri has released many albums as a popular veena artiste in the audio field.