Sergey Yakovlevich Nikitin was born on 8 March 1944 in Moscow, into the family of the military man Yakov Nikitin and Vera Nikitina. In 1962 he finished secondary school № 587 in Moscow. He graduated from the Physics Faculty of the Lomonosov Moscow State University in 1968 as a physic and a master of science. Sergey worked as a research officer in the Organic Chemistry Institute and Biological Physics Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

Starting from 1962 he composed songs based on poems by Russian and foreign poets, such as D. Sukharev, Edward Bagritsky, Boris Paternak, Yuri Morits, Yuri Levitansky, Gennady Shpalikov, Dmitry Samoilov, Alexander Kushner, Andrey Voznesensky, Evgeni Yevtushenko, Boris Ryzhy, William Shakespeare, and others.

Sergey Nikitin took an active part in work of the propaganda team of the Physical Faculty of the Moscow State University as a musician, composer, and head of the quartet of the Physical Faculty. Major part of the teams’ repertoire consisted of Nikitin’s songs based on poems by the faculty graduates Sergey Krylov, Valery Milyayev and Gennady Ivanov. Nikitin created his first song V Doroge (On The Road) set to I. Utkin’s verses in December 1962.

Sergey Nikitin was the organizer and head of the quartet of physicists of MSU (1963—1967), as well as the quintet of MSU physicists (1968—1977), in which there sang Tatyana Sadykova, who became the composer’s wife and stage partner from 1968. From the very beginning of his concert activities Nikitin gained wide fame in students’ milieu and later beyond it also, thanks to his rare gift as a composer, skillful guitar playing and original ensemble arrangements.
In 1978 Tatyana and Sergey Nikitins met the French musician and conductor Paul Moria. Two months later Paul Moria recorded an instrumental version of the song To Vivaldi’s Music by Sergey Nikitin and Viktor Berkovsky. The song was included into the CD Dans Les Yeux D'Amélie.

In 1980 the film Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears directed by Vladimir Menshov and set to Sergey Nikitin’s music won an Oscar as the best foreign film of the year.

Sergey Nikitin’s music was very much called for in theatre, cinema, on television and radio. For a few years, from 1987 to 1995 Sergey Nikitin was in charge of the music of the Moscow Tabakerka Theatre headed by Oleg Tabakov. Presently Nikitin is the Meritorious Artist of Russia, winner of the Tsarskoye Selo Art Award (1997), and a free artist.
In January 2013 Sergey Nikitin strongly refused to perform at the jubilee of Yuri Bashmet “in the view of serious disagreements with the birthday man concerning the adopted law of “Dima Yakovlev” and his attitude to the president Vladimir Putin”.

Sergey Nikitin plays a seven-stringed guitar with a specific minor pitch.
Tatyana and Sergey Nikitins have one son named Alexander (born in 1971) and two grandchildren: Natalya and Danila.