Pippa Murphy
About Pippa Murphy
Pippa is an award-winning composer and sound designer who writes for theatre, dance, screen, choirs and orchestras.
She has written music for the BBC (radio and TV), Celtic Connections, Scottish Opera, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Edinburgh’s Hogmanay, and numerous theatre companies including The Royal Lyceum Edinburgh, Perth Horsecross, Dundee Rep, Birmingham Rep, Grid Iron, Stellar Quines, National Theatre Scotland, 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.
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 is still on an extensive world tour.
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 Scottish Parliament in 2014.
Her theatre credits include: Lost at Sea at Perth Horsecross; Red Lion, and Streetcar Named Desire 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: 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.