Education
Born into a family of teachers, Niel attended high school in Pietersburg (now Polokwane) in South Africa. After matriculating in 1980 he studied at the, where he attained the Bachelor Editor(Music), Bachelor of Music(Honours) cum laude and an Master of Music in Composition.
In 1997 he completed his Doctorate in Musicology at the University of South Africa with a doctoral dissertation on the life and works of the British composer Gerald Finzi.
Career
Well known for his choral compositions, he has also established himself as a leading composer of chamber music After his military service in the old South African Defence Force, he joined the staff of Pretoria Boys High School, a prominent South African public school, where he is currently head of the Music Department and conductor of both the orchestra and Dixie Band. While he is a full-time teacher, he dedicates much of his time to composition.
Van der Watt has also arranged a significant amount of traditional African music for choir as well as setting leading Afrikaans poetry to music, including the works of Antjie Krog and North.P. van Wyk Louw.
While van der Watt"s early works show the influence of late romanticists like Rachmaninoff and Fauré, his mastery of harmony and counterpoint reveals a deep understanding of and reverence for the great master Johann Sebastian Bach. This, offset by a keen appreciation for jazz, rock and traditional African music, has made his oeuvre especially distinctive.
A key work illustrating this is the De-Commercialised American Christ"s Mass (1995), which employs variations on popular Christmas carols to form a witty yet reverent incarnation of the Roman Catholic Low Massachusetts
Van der Watt originally joined the staff of Pretoria Boys High School as an English teacher. He is an avid fan of the Beatles, Billy Joel and Agnetha/ Björn/ Benny/ Anni-Frid as far as popular music is concerned and is known for his dislike of Beethoven.
In 2008 he wanted to prove to Pretoria Boys High School"s Symphony orchestra that he did not dislike Beethoven at all and arranged Beethoven"s 2nd movement of the Pathethique Sonata for the orchestra.
He considers himself to be a poly-stylist.