Born in London, Kate Royal studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the National Opera Studio. Awards include the 2004 Kathleen Ferrier Award, the 2004 John Christie Award, and the 2007 Royal Philharmonic Society Young Artist Award.

In concert she has appeared with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment/Sir Simon Rattle (BBC Proms and Festspielhaus Baden-Baden), the Bach Akademie Stuttgart/Helmuth Rilling, at the Edinburgh Festival/Sir Charles Mackerras, the National Symphony Orchestra (Washington)/Rilling, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic/Vassily Petrenko, the Orchestra of La Scala Milan/Myung-Whun Chung, the Los Angeles Philharmonic/Pablo Heras-Casado, the Boston Symphony/Thomas Adès, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra/Alan Gilbert, Cleveland Orchestra/Franz Welser-Möst, Le Concert d’Astree/Emanuelle Haïm, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra/Robin Ticciati, the Philharmonia/Esa-Pekka Salonen, the BBC Symphony/Jiri Belohlavek, the London Philharmonic/Vladimir Jurowski and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the Rotterdam Philharmonic/Nézet-Séguin, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra/Daniel Harding at the Baltic Sea Festival and the BBC Proms, and both the Berlin Philharmonic and the Orchestra of Bavarian Radio under Rattle. She has appeared in recital throughout Europe and North America.

In opera she has sung Marschallin (Der Rosenkavalier), Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Micaela (Carmen), Female Chorus (The Rape of Lucretia) and Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni) for the Glyndebourne Festival; Pamina for the Baden-Baden Festival with the Berlin Philharmonic and Rattle, the Lucerne Festival with Harding, and the Royal Opera; Countess (Le nozze di Figaro) and Governess (The Turn of the Screw) for Glyndebourne on Tour; Helena (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) for both the Teatro Real, Madrid and the Glyndebourne Festival; Poppea for English National Opera; Miranda (Ades’ The Tempest) for the Royal Opera; Handel’s L’Allegro for the Paris Opera; and Countess Almaviva for the Aix-en-Provence Festival. She made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Euridice, returning for Micaela.

She has recorded Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 with the Manchester Camerata, and Schumann’s Liederkreis with Graham Johnson for Hyperion. In October 2006 she signed an exclusive contract with EMI Classics for whom her first solo recording was a musical portrait with the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields conducted by Edward Gardner, followed by 20th century arias (“Midsummer Night”) with the Orchestra of English National Opera and Gardner, and a solo recital disc with Malcolm Martineau (“A Lesson in Love”).