About the Founder
Born to Trinidadian and Indian parents in the Bay Area, Nikhil Alleyne’s musical journey began when he was three. He is now a junior at Sugar Bowl Academy, a college preparatory academy for ski-racers, where he is able to combine his passion for alpine ski-racing with his creativity in music and his commitment to education.
Nikhil’s musical education began at the piano alongside his father, Brian, a self-taught and avid pianist. By the age of 6, Nikhil had started his formal training in piano and the violin. He also started his 7-year training in Indian classical vocal music at the Raagini School of Music in the Bay Area. This music provided a foundation of rhythm and pitch. In later years, Nikhil expanded his repertoire to Jazz piano. In middle school, Nikhil played the trombone in his school orchestra and then joined the percussion ensemble focusing on the Marimba and Timpani in high school.
It was in the winter of his freshman year in the residence hall at Sugar Bowl Academy, during days and days of being “snowed-in” due to a particularly severe winter, that Nikhil discovered his passion for beat making. He taught himself to make beats using FL studio, specifically hip hop.
Nikhil has always listened to music, and hopes to share his love for music with others.
In creating HowToBeatMath Nikhil is thrilled to be collaborating with other artists and educators to bring greater depth and meaning to the music. In doing so, he realizes that 1 + 1 is certainly greater than 2!
Beatmathers
Julia Grant
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Julia Grant is a junior at The Horace Mann School in the Bronx. Over the years, her passion for music has broadened from just listening to music and singing to playing the piano and guitar, dancing, writing, and producing. She loves music because it is a great way to express herself. At Horace Mann, she has taken advantage of all the fantastic music courses they offer and recognized her love for producing. In addition to music technology, Julia is in the advanced choir, all of the musicals, is the co-captain of a hip-hop dance group, and has taken a music theory course. Because she enjoyed these courses so much, she took a music production technology course through New York University last summer. While Julia has a great passion for music, she also loves math. She loves to work on challenging math problems for hours on end. At Horace Mann, Julia is a great math student and loves helping others with math. Wanting to connect two things she’s incredibly passionate about, Julia became a Beatmather. She says: “I am so excited to look at math through a new lens to help others learn math in a way I never even imagined.”
Rahul Batra
Rahul Batra is a creator at heart and enjoys making music in his free time. For the last 10 years, he has dabbled in freestyle and written rap as “Raja Fresh” and enjoys improvising with other musicians to create something greater than the sum of its parts. He appreciates art in all its manifestations and believes wholeheartedly that we all have great artistic expressions within us, if only we find our outlet.