Pippa was born of English parents but moved to Scotland at an early age, where she was brought up and educated in Edinburgh. She took up the Harp at the age of 12 and was soon involved in many musical activities, including the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain and the Edinburgh Youth Orchestra, with tuition from Karen Vaughan, Daphne Boden and Marisa Robles.
She won a scholarship to study at the Royal Northern College of Music with Frank Sternefeld, where she won the Hiles Medal, and completed her post-graduate studies at the Musik-Akademie der Stadt Basel with Ursula Holliger, made possible with scholarships from The Martin Musical Trust, Goldsmiths’ Company, and the Hope-Scott Trust, and was playing regularly with the Britten Pears Orchestra and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra at this time.
Pippa began her career as a freelance musician in Manchester, playing regularly with the Halle Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Northern Ballet Theatre and the Northern Sinfonia. Since 1999, Pippa has played as Principal Harp with The Royal Scottish National Orchestra, as well as appearing regularly with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Scottish Opera, and Scottish Ballet. She has performed in many of the world’s most prestigious concert halls: Vienna, Edinburgh, Salzburg, Paris, Berlin, Geneva, Madrid and to countries as far away as China and South America.
She has played many times for West End shows, including Phantom of the Opera and Doctor Doolittle.
As a soloist, Pippa has performed concertos with the SCO and RSNO, and played alongside virtuosic vocal groups such as the Dunedin Consort the Waverley Singers, the RSNO Junior Chorus and Les Sirenes.
She has made solo commercial recordings of Britten and Rutter with the RSNO Junior Chorus and Les Sirenes, as well as literally hundreds of recordings with the RSNO, including the complete works of Debussy with Stephane Deneve, and Glasunov’s The Sea and Glasunov’s Raymonda.
Pippa plays regularly with several chamber ensembles: Red Note Ensemble, the Paragon Ensemble, the Hebrides Ensemble and in her Flute and Harp Duo with world renowned flautist, Katherine Bryan, (Principal Flute of the RSNO), in recent concerts in Glasgow, Edinburgh, the Isle of Man and Yorkshire.