Kate St John is a composer, arranger, producer and instrumentalist (oboe, cor anglais, accordion, saxophone and piano). She was born in London in 1957 and was classically trained on oboe. She gained a music degree at City University London. Her first band was The Ravishing Beauties with Virginia Astley and Nicky Holland. The trio joined The Teardrop Explodes in Liverpool during the winter of 1981 for a series of dates at a small clubs and a UK tour in early 1982. During the 1980s and early 1990s she was a member of The Dream Academy with Nick Laird-Clowes and Gilbert Gabriel. In 1985 they had a worldwide hit with "Life In A Northern Town" and produced three albums: The Dream Academy (1985), Remembrance Days (1987) and A Different Kind Of Weather (1990). In the 1990s St. John was a member of Van Morrison's live band playing oboe and saxophone. She played on 5 Van Morrison albums. In 1994 she co-wrote and sang on 4 tracks with Roger Eno on the album The Familiar on the All Saints Label. This led to the formation of Channel Light Vessel, a band with Kate, Roger Eno, Bill Nelson, Laraaji and Mayumi Tachibana. St John has released two solo albums: Indescribable Night (1995) and Second Sight (1997).
She has played and toured with many artists including Van Morrison, Julian Cope, The Waterboys, Damon Albarn, Marianne Faithfull and Morrissey.
Since 2005 she has specialised in being a Musical Director for multi-artist shows including working with Joe Boyd on the Way To Blue tributes to Nick Drake, Hal Wilner on his Rogues Gallery, Nino Rota concerts, Blood and Roses Tribute to Ewan MacColl, Bright Phoebus Revisited and the Imagining Ireland/Imagining Home concerts in 2016 at The National Concert Hall in Dublin and The Royal Festival Hall (London). She is also a string and woodwind arranger.
Kate and her husband and writing partner, Neill MacColl, specialise in On Set music production in films, having worked on Far From The Madding Crowd (2015), Tulip Fever (2017), My Cousin Rachel (2017), The Little Stranger (2018), Dirt Music (in Post production)