Soumik Dutta

Soumik Datta (born January 1984) is a Bengali-born British Indian musician and composer who specializes in the sarod. Born in Mumbai and brought up in London, he comes from a creative family background and received his early education in the UK. He trained intensively in sarod under Pandit Buddhadev Das Gupta, travelling to Kolkata for focused periods of study. Datta has described himself as deeply devoted to the instrument and continues to draw from the Hindustani classical tradition as the foundation of his music.

Academically, Datta studied at University College London and later completed a master’s degree in composition at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in 2009. His career soon expanded beyond classical recitals into collaborations and cross-genre projects. In 2006, he was invited by Jay-Z to perform at the Royal Albert Hall and later appeared on stage with Beyoncé.

Datta has contributed to film scores for productions such as Brick Lane (2007), Life Goes On (2009), and Gangs of Tooting Broadway (2013). In 2017, he curated a music and dance festival at the Horniman Museum in London and presented the documentary Tuning 2 You: Lost Musicians of India, directed by his brother Souvid Datta.

As a performer, he appears at major festivals and venues internationally. He performed at the Glastonbury Festival in 2019 and has been a recurring artist at the Darbar Festival since 2007, collaborating with musicians such as Sukhvinder Singh, Shahbaz Hussain, and Jesse Banister. His repertoire spans classical recitals as well as projects influenced by jazz, Indo-blues, and electronic styles, while remaining anchored in raga music.

His album releases include Fretless (2009), Circle of Sound (2012, with Bernhard Schimpelsberger), Anti-Hero (2014), King of Ghosts (2019), Jangal (2019), and Silent Spaces (2021). Through recordings, performances, and collaborations, Soumik Datta represents a generation of musicians exploring new contexts for Indian classical instruments while maintaining a connection to tradition.