Neel Murgai

Neel Murgai is a sitarist, overtone singer, daf player, composer and teacher from Brooklyn, NY. He is the Artistic Director of the South Asian music collective, Brooklyn Raga Massive. Neel has studied sitar for 27 years with Pundit Krishna Bhatt. Overtone singing Neel learned from Batuvshin of the Buriyat performance group Uragsha and from Timothy Hill of the Harmonic Choir. He is a graduate of Goddard College's MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts program. His first album with Neel Murgai Ensemble was released on Innova Records in 2010. Neel has worked with numerous artists from varying disciplines including, Bill T. Jones, Cyndi Lauper, Wyclef Jean, Andre DeShields, Tyler Swift, Karsh Kale, Rosanne Cash and Vijay Iyer. Neel's was recently shown in Will Smith's Super Bowl commercial for his new Bel Aire show. He has performed at venues ranging from the Lincoln Center and Kennedy Center to Late Night with David Letterman to jazz clubs such as the Blue Note and at festivals around the U.S. Neel’s theater and dance credits include playing music for Bill T. Jones’ “Blind Date,” Disney’s musical theater adaptation of “The Jungle Book” directed by Mary Zimmerman, and composing and performing music for Bacchae 2.1 directed by Michole Biancosino. Neel has also composed music for many film and TV projects including the features, “The Yes Men Fix the World", which premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and "A Decent Arrangement" starring Shabana Azmi.