Neal Peres Da Costa is Professor of Historical Performance and Associate Dean (Research) at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney. An internationally recognised performing scholar and historical keyboard specialist, he is known for research-led performances that reconnect sound, rhetoric, and embodiment in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century music. His award-winning discography includes an Australian Recording Industry Award (ARIA), and he performs regularly with Ironwood, the Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra, and Bach Akademie Australia, in addition to appearing as a guest continuo player with leading Australian ensembles and soloists.
His ground-breaking monograph Off the Record: Performing Practices in Romantic Piano Playing (Oxford University Press, 2012) is widely regarded as a foundational text for pianists and scholars. His publications also include numerous influential book chapters, the complete co-edited Brahms Sonatas for Solo Instrument and Piano (Bärenreiter, 2015/16), and the Performing Practice Commentary for Beethoven’s Sonatas for Piano and Violin (Bärenreiter, 2020), co-produced with Clive Brown.
Neal has delivered invited and keynote presentations internationally, most recently in Europe and South Korea. He is Lead Chief Investigator on three Australian Research Council Discovery Projects—Deciphering Nineteenth-Century Pianism, Hearing the Music of Early New South Wales 1788–1860, and The Shock of the Old: Rediscovering the Sounds of Bel Canto 1700–1900. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and a member of the Australian Research Council College of Experts.
Photo credit: University of Sydney