A scholar of musicology, based on ancient music. His
lifelong endeavor to reconstruct the Musical System of
Muni Bharata, with dance and theatre accordingly the
Natyashastra. To reach this point he started his journey
from learning Dhrupad & Rudra Veena, also the study on
ancient texts like ‘Natyashastra’ of Muni Bharata,
‘Bharatavasyam’ of Nanya Deva, ‘Abhinava Bharati’ of
Abhinava Gupta, ‘Sangeet Ratnakara’ of Sharangdev,
‘Sangeet Parijat’, ‘Sangeet Raja’ etc. under the guidance
of Shri Piyal Bhattacharya, the eminent research Scholar and Director. Mr. Mitra started learning Dagar
Tradition of playing Veena under Piyal Bhattacharya and also under the guidance of
Pt. Asit Banerjee, the senior disciple of
Ustd. Zia Mohinuddin Dagar.
Then Sayak started learning Veena for
his further development under
Ustd. Mohi Bahauddin Dagar.
For researching on the ancient Rudra Veena tradition Sayak got 'Spectrum Grant Fellowship’ in the
year 2018 from TATA Trust. For this work he started learning the Senia tradition of playing Veena
under the guidance of Shri Ujjwalendu Chakraborty, the only Surbahar player of Senia Tradition,
who use to play the Surbahar in 3 mizrab, belongs to the lineage of
Ustd. Dabir Khan
the last legend
of Taan Sen. Mr. Chakraborty’s Guru was Pt. Santosh Banerjee. Till now Sayak is in Sadhna.
For researching on Alapini Veena of ‘Sangeet Ratnakara’ Sayak got Fellowship from Ministry of
Culture in the year 2017 and travelled to Jonha village of Jharkhand to learn the ‘Tuhila’, the surviving
living tradition of this primitive Veena. In the same year he travelled to Telengana to do the research
on Kinnari Veena of ‘Sangeet Ratnakara’ & ‘Brihaddesi’ .
So, for the last 11 years Sayak Mitra is passing through a journey with Veenas of India. From the first
‘Vakra Veena’ Asian harp to fretless Stick Zither ‘Alapini’ to first fretted veena ‘Kinnari’ to till
Rudra Veena and Carnatic Veena. His lifelong endeavor to create a whole system of Veena
accordingly Indian Scriptural evidences, not only textually but also, practically by learning and
reconstructing. His process is ongoing and it will be a treasure in the periphery of Indian Veena
Tradition.
