Pritam Chakraborty

Short Biography

Pritam was born in Kolkata into a Bengali family. Pritam is the son of Prabodh Chakraborty, who runs a music school for children. Pritam gained his early training in music from his father and learned to play the guitar while still in school.After completing his schooling at St. James` School and college education at Presidency College, he went to a music school. At Presidency he was the Social Services Secretary of the Students Union run by the Independents` Consolidation (IC). Pritam joined a Bangla band, Chandrabindoo. Before that he formed another band with his Presidency batchmates, called "Jotugriher Pakhi". They even have a cassette released to their credit at that time. In January 1993, Pritam joined the Film and Television Institute in Pune to undertake a course in sound recording and sound engineering. During this time, he was offered a chance to compose background music for a film by Hungarian filmmaker Istvan Gaal. He learned music theory, harmony and composition from ethnomusicologist and khyal singer Warren Senders, as well as briefly encountering principles of African Music from Senders and musicologist Kedar Having completed his education, Pritam Chakraborty moved to Mumbai to pursue a career in Bollywood. During his stay in Mumbai, he began composing ad jingles, and became friendly with a number of other young men struggling to make it big, like Shantanu Moitra, Rajkumar Hirani, Sanjay Gadhvi and Chandrajeet Ganguly, also known as Jeet, who played the guitar with Anup Jalota.Pritam got his first break when Gadhvi was signed on to direct Tere Liye and he, in turn, signed on his friends Jeet and Pritam as music composers. Though the music was well received, the film sank at the box office. However, in 2002 Yashraj Films signed Gadhvi up to direct Mere Yaar Ki Shaadi Hai, for which the Jeet-Pritam duo once again composed the music. All the songs from that movie were chartbusters, and the duo had hit the big time.His music comprises various kinds including Indian classical music and western influences. Pritam was then actively involved in mentoring and judging new talent on Zee TV`s singing competition show Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge 2009.