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The spirit of the millennium has ushered in yet another musical maestro in it’s using of aesthetic glory in the name of Shri Somnath Roy. An unabated versatile north Indian Musician who has made an in-depth study of South Indian percussion and perfectly blended the North - South melody to blossom into a full-fledged artiste. He is an exponent of Hindusthani flute, Dholak and Western percussion.

The "Ghatam" is a percussion instrument; an earthen ware pot played in South Indian Classical Music. Two main kind of Ghatam exists, very thick walls and light walls. The thick walled ghatam is considered to have nicer sound than the second type but is more difficult to play. The pots are tuned to the tonic of the musician, so a ghatam player can have up to 50 different ghatams to perfectly suit the pitch of the vocalist. The percussionist uses the flat, the nuckles and the sides of both hands to hit the wall of the ghatam but he also uses his belly to cover the mouth oh the pot, generating controlled tuning and even notes in the lower octave.

Born of Bengali origin in Howrah, West Bengal on June 21^st 1971 Somnath’s young mind showed a remarkable degree of intensity towards musical instruments from his very childhood. This tutelage started in 1989 under the guidance of musical genious Shri Nepal Sarkar, who taught him intricacies of Hindusthani flute. The eminent scholar Sri Bablu Biswas gave him “Talim” in “Dholak” and under the earnest training of Shri Amal Roy Somnath perfected himself on western percussion. Seeing this young man who with all his mind and heart delved religiously into this nectar of music. Shri S. Sekhar the well known “Mridangam Vidwan” accepted Somnath as his “Sishya” and he became his ardent pupil who savored diligently. The teaching of his guru as he tutored him on the laya intricacies of South Indian percussion. At the brink of his music learning Somnath Roy may introduced to Vidwan Shri V.Suresh an illustrious percussionist with an aesthetic sense of approach for a gurukul study of one art of playing the ‘Ghatam’. Somnath traveled all the way to Chennai in 1997, to meet this versatile genious, who with his invaluable, inimitable and indomitable technique has gained fame of being the authentic sole representative of the “Umayalpuram kothendermaiyer style”. Under the strict discipline of Shri V.Suresh, Somnath Roy went through a vigorous training for a period of two years for learning the unique fingering technique and adaptability on Ghatam. The training from Vidwan Shri V.Suresh embellished Somnath with the art of learning Ghatam in “Umayalpuram Kothendermaiyer style” along with discipline and humility, which are the perquisites for a dignified musician. This training was held in the year 1999 and called “Arengetram”. Somnath Roy’s genious and versatility in playing the Ghatam his in a technique called “Double gumki” wherein he makes use of alternative pressure by the palm. The styles which makes Somnath’s presentation so exciting is called “Nadai” which is short and sweet, the final technique of presentation of the Ghatam is called’ “Korvais” which is most scientific and aesthetic. Today Somnath joins the rank of illustrated few North Indian musicians and holds a prestigious place in their profound knowledge of Carnatic music.