ALICE MCVEIGH was born to American diplomats in Seoul, South Korea. She lived in various parts of South-East Asia until she was a teenager, when her family returned to the suburbs of Washington, D.C. She then started to learn the cello.

She attended Indiana University's famous School of Music, graduating with distinction in performance in 1980. She came to London in the same year in order to study with William Pleeth (the teacher of Jacqueline Du Pré).

She married an English subject in 1981; they have lived ever since in Orpington, Kent. Alice's husband, Professor Simon McVeigh, is currently head of the music department at Goldsmiths College, University of London. They have one child, Rachel Elizabeth, who was born in September 1997.
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