Kate Neal studied Early Music at the Victorian College of the Arts graduating with a Bachelor of Performance 1996. During this time she also studied composition with Mary Finsterer, Mark Pollard and Brenton Broadstock.
Kate Neal is part of constellation in Melbourne.
She received a NUFFIC scholarship from the Dutch Government in 1998 and moved to the Netherlands to study composition with Louis Andriessen, Martijn Padding and Gilius van Bergeijk at the Koninklijk Conservatory, and Carnatic (South Indian) music studies with Rafael Rainer at the Sweelink Conservatory, Amsterdam. In 2000 Neal was awarded equal first prize in the International Young Composers Meeting and a special mention in the Henriette Bosmans prize.
She returned to Melbourne, Australia in 2003, establishing her events company Dead Horse Productions. In August 2005 Kate Neal received a scholarship from the Accademia Musicale Chigiana, Siena, Italy, and, in 2006, she was the recipient of the Hephzibah Tintner Fellowship, affiliated with the Australian Ballet, Sydney Dance Company and Sydney Symphony Orchestra.
Kate Neal is the recipient of various awards and fellowships, including the Aspen Music Festival, the Atlantic Centre for the Arts and the Australia Council for the Arts. She has enjoyed working as an orchestrator and arranger for many pop and rock bands as well as feature and independent films, choreographers and dance companies. At the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, Neal worked as a sessional composition teacher in the Music Department and also lectured in Music and Image at the Centre for Ideas in 2004-2007.
In July 2008, Kate Neal got her postgraduate diploma (Hons) in composition from the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester (UK). In September 2009 she will begin a PhD position at Princeton University, New Jersey (USA).
