Shantanu Mohapatra was born on November 1936, Baripada in Mayurbhanj district. He received B.Sc in Applied Geology and Geophysics in 1957 from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. He joined the State Directorate of Mining and Geology Government of Odisha in June, 1957 as a Geologist from which he later retired as the Director (Mining & Geology) in 1994. A born singer, Mr. Mohapatra learnt vocal music from Sangeet Narayan Banchhanidhi Panda from the age of five years and was ready for public performances at the tender age of nine years. Shantanu Mohapatra is a multi faceted personality who has shown his talent both as a singer and music director.

As a “Top Grade” composer of AIR & Doordarshan, for over 30 years, Shantanu Mohapatra has composed hundreds of oriya modern songs. Besides composing hundreds of songs and scoring Music for about 10 Jatra’s (Folk Theatre). He has scored the music of many Odiya, Bengali and Hindi feature films which won both Regional and National Awards.Those films include Chilika Teerey, Priyatamaa, Agni Parikshya, Meghamukti, Sita Raati (Art), Jibana Sangram in oriya language, ‘Mahaaprithibi’ (Bengali)(Art) and SODH (Hindi) (Art) which won the Golden Lotus Award in 1979-the first coloured Hindi film produced from Odisha.

He has also been credited as the first Odia music director to work in films in five different languages: Odia, Hindi, Bengali, Assamese and Telugu. Besides Odia playback singers, others who have sung under his music direction include, Suresh Wadekar, Abhijeet, Anuradha Powdwal, Kabita Krishnamurti from Mumbai. His awards include Lalit Kala Academy, 2004, Odisha Film Critic Award, 1995; Chhayaa Chitra (Film Journal, Cuttack)1981, Sura Sudarshan, Srikshetra Kala Prakashika, Puri, 1979; Chalachitra Jagat (Film Journal, Cuttack), 1978 and Chitrapuri (Film Journal, Cuttack), 1969.