Neal Peres Da Costa was born in Bahrain, then part of the Trucial States, to parents from Goa, India.
In 2002, he attained a PhD from the University of Leeds, where he researched performing practices in late 19th-century piano playing with particular reference to early recordings.
He was the co-founder of Florilegium, an internationally renowned period instrument ensemble with which he performed around the world, including France, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, North and South America, China and Australia, and in major venues such as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires and the Wigmore Hall in London, at which Florilegium held a prestigious residency for several years.
He is principal continuo player on the ABC Classics recording of Bach Arias with Sara Macliver and Sally-Anne Russell.
He has made several recordings on the ABC Classics label including the Bach Sonatas for Viola da Gamba and Harpsichord with Daniel Yeadon, and the Bach Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord with Richard Tognetti and Daniel Yeadon, which won the 2008 ARIA fine arts award for Best Classical Album.
[2] Peres Da Costa's first monograph "Off The Record: Performing Practices in Romantic Piano Playing" (Oxford, New York: 2012) examines the performing practices of late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century pianists captured on acoustic and electrical recordings and reproducing piano rolls and compares these with contemporaneous written texts.