He is one of the rarest gems in the ocean of Odisha’s own music tradition. An alumnus of IIT, Kharagpur (1957); a distinguished Geoscientist by profession who believes in rapid socio-economic development through planned large scale exploration and exploitation of the vast and varied mineral wealth, our state is endowed with. Yah, Shantanu Mohapatra, a born singer who as a music director has composed the first ever Ballad Song in oDiA i.e., “Konark Gaathaa”(1956) sung by the legendary Akshaya Mohanty and “Kaali Jaai” (1962)sung by Sikandar Alam. For the first time he introduced legendary Bollywood Greats, Lata Mangeshkar, Md. Rafi & Manna Dey into oDiA film music for ‘Suryamukhi’ (1963) and ‘Arundhati’ (1967). The music of those two films is considered as the milestone in oDiA film music. He is the only oDiA Composer to have composed Geet & Ghazals for Doordarshan, New Delhi.

A Rare Feet indeed, especially when considered in terms of his 50 long years of Creative Music Composition & Direction of “All the Hues” from “Light Classical” to “Traditional Folk”, “Devotional” and Modern/ Sugam Categories, over 1900 songs tuned and over 108 Singers taught by him by 2009.

And today, he is known both as a successful Mineral Development Consultant as well as a brilliant Creative Music Director.