Pippa is an award-winning, Scottish-based composer and sound designer who writes for theatre, dance, screen, choirs and orchestras.

Known for her stylistic breadth, she works with writers, film-makers and choreographers as well as Folk, Indie, Jazz and Classical musicians. She has written music for the BBC (radio and TV), Celtic Connections, Scottish Opera, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, BBC Proms, Edinburgh’s Hogmanay, and numerous theatre companies including National Theatre Scotland, The Royal Lyceum Edinburgh, Royal Court, Battersea Arts,Perth Horsecross, Dundee Rep, Birmingham Rep, Grid Iron, Stellar Quines, Traverse Theatre, and 7:84.

Her sound design for Karine Polwart’s Wind Resistance won the CATS Awards for Best Music & Sound 2018, and their album Pocket of Wind Resistance was nominated for BBC Folk Album of the Year 2018.

Pippa was classically trained on piano, violin and percussion from an early age and completed her BMus, MA and PhD in composition at The University of Birmingham. She lectures at Edinburgh University and was Artist in Residence at the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh 2022, Scottish Parliament in 2014. In 2014 she wrote an opera with Alexander McCall Smith and Scottish Opera as part of the Commonwealth Games. Her music to POP-UP Duets for Janis Claxton Dance has been awarded 5-star reviews after an extensive world tour.

Theatre credits include: Macbeth (An Undoing) Royal Lyceum Theatre; Enough of Him (NTS, Pitlochry Theatre); Orphans (National Theatre of Scotland); Total Immediate Collective Imminent Terrestrial Salvation (Edinburgh International Festival, Royal Court, National Theatre Scotland & Tim Crouch); Lost at Sea atPerth Horsecross; Red Lion, Clynebourne Park for Rapture Theatre; Wind Resistance, and Creditors at the Royal Lyceum Theatre; Woman in Mind at Dundee Rep; Crude for Grid Iron; The Sky is Safe, Factor 9 for Dogstar; View from Castle Rock for Stellar Quines/Edinburgh Book Festival; Hector for Nutshell Theatre; The Air that Carried the Weight for Stellar Quines; Gilt for 7:84; Strangers Babies at the Traverse Theatre; Standing Wave: Delia Derbyshire at the Tron Theatre Glasgow.

Other credits include: Joseph Knight – Scenes for Survival (BBC, National Theatre Scotland), Aleister Crowley – Scenes for Survival (BBC, National Theatre Scotland), Message from the Skies for Edinburgh Hogmanay 2019; Resurrection - Val McDermid for Edinburgh Hogmanay 2018; City of the Blind for Fire Exit; Anamchara – Songs of Friendship for the Scottish Opera and the Commonwealth Games 2014; POP-UP Duets with Janis Claxton Dance and National Museums of Scotland; and numerous arrangements for the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.

Pippa Murphy's website