Kate Melina Miller-Heidke (born 16 November 1981) is an Australian singer and songwriter. Although classically trained, she has generally followed a career in alternative pop music. She signed to Sony Australia, Epic in the US and RCA in the UK, but since 2014 has been an independent artist. Four of her solo studio albums have peaked in the top 10 of the ARIA Albums Chart, Curiouser (October 2008), Nightflight (April 2012), O Vertigo! (March 2014) and Child in Reverse (October 2020). Her most popular single, “The Last Day on Earth” (July 2009), reached No. 3 on the ARIA Singles Chart after being used in promos for TV soap, Neighbours, earlier in that year. At the ARIA Music Awards Miller-Heidke has been nominated 17 times.

She represented Australia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2019 in Tel Aviv, Israel with her song, “Zero Gravity” (January 2019). Miller-Heidke is the only person to have sung at all three, Coachella, the New York Metropolitan Opera, and Eurovision. She has won five Helpmann Awards.

Kate Melina Miller-Heidke was born on 16 November 1981 in Gladstone, Queensland. Her mother, Jenny Miller, was a ballet dancer and then a dance teacher and her father, Greg Heidke, is a high school principal. After her parents separated, she was raised between Indooroopilly with her mother and Auchenflower with her father; she has two siblings. One of her cousins, Annie Lee, portrays Mourne Kransky in the comedy trio, the Kransky Sisters.

For secondary education Miller-Heidke attended Kelvin Grove State College (two years), Brigidine College, Indooroopilly (one year) prior to graduating from St Aidan’s Anglican Girls’ School (two years) in 1998. She completed a Bachelor of Music degree in Classical Voice from the Queensland Conservatorium of Music at Griffith University on full scholarship, followed by a Master of Music degree at Queensland University of Technology.

As a classical singer, she has won awards: Elizabeth Muir Prize (2000), Donald Penman Prize (2001), Linda Edith Allen Memorial Prize (2002) and Horace Keats Prize (2002). Her conservatorium performances were in Orpheus in the Underworld (2000), Venus and Adonis (2002) and The Pilgrim’s Progress (2002). As an Opera Queensland Developing Artist, Miller-Heidke has performed as an understudy in productions, Sweeney Todd, Don Pasquale and Un ballo in maschera. In July 2005 she made her solo professional operatic debut with Opera Queensland in the role of Flora in Britten’s The Turn of the Screw.

At the Woodford Folk Festival, December 2008. She had been named Queen of the Festival back in 2002–2003.
Miller-Heidke, while a tertiary student, from 2000 played in several Brisbane alternative pop bands. She was lead singer and songwriter with acoustic pop/folk band Elsewhere, which formed in 2000, and released a self-titled extended play of original songs before breaking up in 2003. She briefly played keyboards in Pete Murray’s backing band, and started her solo career in 2003.

She performed at an annual event, Women in Voice, three times: in 2002, 2004 and 2005, where she shared the stage with Pearly Black, Margret RoadKnight, Jenny Morris and Chrissy Amphlett. Miller-Heidke became known in Brisbane from these performances and her 2005 appearance in Women in Voice 14 won her the Helpmann Award for Best Performance in an Australian Contemporary Concert. John Shand of The Sydney Morning Herald felt, “The young raised the bar with a witty rendition of David Byrne’s ‘Psycho Killer’, part Peter Sellers and part mock-opera.”

In June 2004 Miller-Heidke independently recorded and distributed her first EP, Telegram, for its seven tracks, five were written or co-written by the singer and two by her then-boyfriend, Keir Nuttall. Nuttall is the founding mainstay lead guitarist and vocalist in Brisbane-based progressive rock band Transport, which formed in 2001. Nuttall and fellow Transport members have also worked as part of Miller-Heidke’s backing band since 2004. In 2005 she released a second EP with four tracks, Comikaze, however only 500 copies were made. It was later referred to as an “aborted comedy CD.” In 2007 she explained that it was a “big mistake and promptly stopped pressing them.”

Miller-Heidke was preparing to sing the role of Mabel in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance with Opera Australia in late 2005. Instead she turned from classical to pop music when “Space They Cannot Touch”, a track from Telegram, became a hit on Australia’s national youth radio network, Triple J and was named by station presenter Richard Kingsmill as his “pick of the week” in September. Radio support led to increased national attention for her music: not only did she gain thousands of fans, she signed with EMI Music Australia, obtained her first talent manager, Leanne de Souza, and her first agent, Dorry Kartabani, at the Harbour Agency. She then began touring Australia with her band.

As well as touring Australia she appeared at festivals in Woodford – where she was named Queen of the Woodford Folk Festival in 2002–2003 and in Port Fairy and Blue Mountains. The artist was a guest panellist on TV shows, RocKwiz, Spicks and Specks and Q&A. She has performed on ABC TV’s The Sideshow and Q&A, on Network Ten’s Rove and Good News Week, Seven Network’s Sunrise and The Morning Show, and on live broadcasts of the ARIA Music Awards.