About Nitin

Nitin Mitta is one of the prominent young tabla players of his generation. Born in Hyderabad , in 1975, and brought up there, Nitin first performed solo tabla at the age of ten. Over the years he has matured into a tabla player of rare technical virtuosity and sensitivity. He has performed worldwide with some of India's most celebrated and honored musicians – such as Pt. Jasraj, Dr. Prabha Atre, Pt. Rajan Sajan Mishra, Pt.Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, Smt. Veena Sahasrabudhe and Pt. Budhaditya Mukherjee just to name a few. Nitin's accompaniment – at once dexterous, supportive and spontaneously inventive - combined with the rich repertoire that he has inherited from his guru-s, and the inspiration that he draws from his peers has won him the admiration of music lovers and connoisseurs at an international level.

Nitin received his early training in Hyderabad from Pandit G. Satyanarayana . In his years as a tabla-student, he won many accolades, including the first prize in the All India Competition held in Calcutta and completing the diploma in music from the Telugu University, Hyderabad with Honors. He was also awarded a National Scholarship by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Central Govt. His passion for rhythm and his desire to enhance his repertoire of tabla-compositions, lead him to seek the guidance of Pandit Arvind Mulgaonkar who lives in Mumbai, and is one of the most highly respected Tabla-mentors of his generation. Mulgaonkarji familiarized Nitin with numerous traditional tabla-solo compositions and focused his student's attention upon those finer aspects of rendition that bring these compositions to life in performance, allowing for all the subtleties of individual interpretation. Both of Nitin's Gurus are disciples of the late Ustad Amir Hussain Khan Saheb, legendary doyen of the Farukhabad Gharana . Nitin has thus received two perspectives upon a single tradition and he has enriched his inheritance through his own capacity for assimilation and interpretation.

On moving to the United States in 2002, Nitin received a grant from the Rhode Island State Council on Arts . He has been on the Faculty at the Learn Quest Academy of Music in Waltham , MA . Now a resident of New York City , He is actively involved in teaching, performing, recording, and conducting tabla workshops. He has recently performed at venues like The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rubin Museum of Art, The Asia Society, and The Indian Embassy in New York and The Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC. He has also conducted lecture-demonstrations and performed at Brown University, MIT, Harvard, UC Berkeley, U Penn, The University of Chicago and Drury University.