Pip Eastop

File:Pip Eastop, horn player.jpg

{{Short description|British musician (born 1958)}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

Pip Eastop (born 1958){{Cite web|url=http://www.rcm.ac.uk/brass/professors/details/?id=01259|title=Phillip Eastop {{!}} Royal College of Music|website=www.rcm.ac.uk|language=en|access-date=2017-08-22}} is a virtuoso horn player from London. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music from 1974 to 1976, leaving to take up the position of Principal Horn with the Flanders Philharmonic (now known as the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra). The following year he became Principal Horn of the London Sinfonietta.{{Cite web |title=Pip Eastop |url=https://guild-of-hornplayers.co.uk/ensemble-members/pip-eastop/ |access-date=2025-06-20 |website=Guild of Hornplayers |language=en-US}}

Between 1983 and 1986, Eastop trained as a teacher of the Alexander Technique and from 1987 taught this discipline for four years, later incorporating his understanding of the technique into his brass teaching method.{{Cite web|url=http://eastop.net/|title=Pip Eastop|website=eastop.net|language=en|access-date=2017-08-22}} He contributed to the chapter on 'Playing, learning and teaching brass' in the Cambridge Companion to Brass Instruments.{{Citation |last=Dudgeon |first=Ralph T. |title=Playing, learning and teaching brass |date=1997 |work=The Cambridge Companion to Brass Instruments |pages=193–206 |editor-last=Wallace |editor-first=John |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-brass-instruments/playing-learning-and-teaching-brass/A40AF07FCE4066F3BD92D422C3989791 |access-date=2025-06-15 |series=Cambridge Companions to Music |place=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-56522-6 |last2=Eastop |first2=Phillip |last3=Herbert |first3=Trevor |last4=Wallace |first4=John |editor2-last=Herbert |editor2-first=Trevor}}

Eastop was a professor of horn at the Royal Academy of Music from 1993 to 2007 and at the Royal College of Music from 1995 to 2019. He was named a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music in 2000.{{Cite web |title=Honours |url=https://www.ram.ac.uk/about-us/honours |access-date=2025-06-14 |website=Royal Academy of Music |language=en-GB}}

In addition to holding principal positions with the London Chamber Orchestra and Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra, Eastop has been guest principal with all the major London symphony orchestras and smaller groups such as the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and London Mozart Players.{{Cite web |title=Pip Eastop |url=https://guild-of-hornplayers.co.uk/ensemble-members/pip-eastop/ |access-date=2025-06-20 |website=Guild of Hornplayers |language=en-US}} He has also performed extensively with the Aurora Orchestra, including playing the solo part in Benjamin Britten's Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings at Kings Place and Snape Maltings Concert Hall with British tenor Allan Clayton.{{Cite web |title=London Serenade |url=https://www.auroraorchestra.com/event/london-serenade/ |access-date=2025-06-15 |website=Aurora Orchestra |language=en-GB}}{{Cite web |title=Snape Maltings Serenade |url=https://www.auroraorchestra.com/event/snape-maltings/ |access-date=2025-06-15 |website=Aurora Orchestra |language=en-GB}}

In 1996, the Arts Council of Great Britain awarded Eastop a research development grant to explore "the possibilities of controlling computer-driven transformation of sound during live, partially improvised performance". This work was undertaken in collaboration with the composer Edward Williams.The British Horn Society news, 1996 Eastop's interest in music technology subsequently led him to create his own piece for solo horn and loopstation, Sea Bells, which he premiered at the British Horn Festival in 2011.{{Cite web |date=2020-08-11 |title=Sea Bells |url=https://three-worlds-records.com/playlist/sea-bells/ |access-date=2025-06-15 |website=Three Worlds Records Ltd |language=en-GB}}

His recording of the Mozart horn concertos with Anthony Halstead and the Hanover Band was released in 2015.{{Cite web |last=Phillip |first=Eastop |date= |title=Mozart Horn Concertos |url=https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_CDA68097 |archive-url= |archive-date= |access-date= |website=Hyperion Records}} Reviews of this album praised Eastop's 'refined legato' (Gramophone) and 'cheeky virtuosity' (The Arts Desk), while his cadenzas were described by one reviewer as 'wild and wacky' (Financial Times).{{Cite web |title=MOZART Horn Concertos Nos 1 - 4. Horn Quintet |url=https://www.gramophone.co.uk/reviews/review?slug=mozart-horn-concertos-nos-1-4-horn-quintet |access-date=2025-06-15 |website=Gramophone |language=en}}{{Cite web |date=2015-01-17 |title=Classical CDs Weekly: Bach, Mozart, Poulenc |url=https://theartsdesk.com/classical-music/classical-cds-weekly-bach-mozart-poulenc |access-date=2025-06-15 |website=theartsdesk.com |language=en}}{{Cite news |last=Fairman |first=Richard |date=2015-01-23 |title=Mozart: Horn Concertos — review |url=https://www.ft.com/content/a63fa076-a045-11e4-aa89-00144feab7de |access-date=2025-06-15 |work=Financial Times}} These cadenzas were published in 2024 by Clifton Edition.{{Cite web |title=Mozart Horn Concerto Cadenzas by Pip Eastop – Clifton Edition |url=https://cliftonedition.com/c492/ |access-date=2025-06-15 |language=en-GB}}

Eastop's next recording project was a two-album series of improvisations for horn and organ with Susanne Kujala in the Organo hall of Helsinki Music Centre. Captured live at the first ever Brass @ Sibelius Academy festival in June 2016,{{Cite web |title=Home - Brass at Sibelius Academy - Uniarts Sites |url=https://sites.uniarts.fi/web/brass-siba |access-date=2025-06-20 |website=sites.uniarts.fi}} this collaboration was an experiment in what Eastop calls "co-composing in realtime, 'writing' not with pen and paper but instead with microphones and digital recording media".{{Cite web |date=2017-09-20 |title=Songs Of A Lost Land volume 1 |url=https://three-worlds-records.com/playlist/songs-of-a-lost-land-volume-1/ |access-date=2025-06-20 |website=Three Worlds Records Ltd |language=en-GB}}{{Cite web |date=2019-08-16 |title=Songs Of A Lost Land volume 2 |url=https://three-worlds-records.com/playlist/songs-of-a-lost-land-volume-2/ |access-date=2025-06-20 |website=Three Worlds Records Ltd |language=en-GB}}

He went on to collaborate again with Anthony Halstead for his 2020 album Set the Wild Echoes Flying, a seven-movement work for natural horn and narrator that features four poems and extensive musical allusions from Britten's Serenade.{{Cite web |date=2019-11-29 |title=Set The Wild Echoes Flying |url=https://three-worlds-records.com/playlist/set-the-wild-echoes-flying/ |access-date=2025-06-20 |website=Three Worlds Records Ltd |language=en-GB}}{{Cite web |title=Pip Eastop |url=http://www.editiondb.com/eastoptext.htm |access-date=2025-06-20 |website=www.editiondb.com}} This recording has been lauded as 'utterly remarkable' and a 'superhuman achievement' (Classical Explorer).{{Cite web |date=2024-12-01 |title=Set The Wild Echoes Flying: Pip Eastop's remarkable take on Britten |url=https://www.classicalexplorer.com/set-the-wild-echoes-flying-pip-eastops-2/ |access-date=2025-06-20 |website=Classical Explorer |language=en}}

Eastop retired from playing the horn in 2022 to concentrate on composing and producing.{{Cite journal |last=Mortimer |first=Owen |date=Autumn 2024 |title=Pip Eastop on life after the horn |url=https://british-horn.org/the-horn-player-vol-21-no-2 |journal=The Horn Player |publisher=British Horn Society |volume=21 |issue=2}} He appears as trumpet/flugelhorn soloist on three tracks from the 2024 album 1325 Ibn Battutah by UK-Middle Eastern band Syriana, and had a new work for oboe and fixed media premiered at London's Fitzrovia Arts Festival 2025.{{Cite web |title=Syriana 1325 Ibn Battutah, by Syriana |url=https://bernardoneill.bandcamp.com/album/syriana-1325-ibn-battutah |access-date=2025-06-15 |website=Bernard O Neill |language=en}}{{Cite web |date=2025-06-04 |title=Fitzrovia Arts Festival 2025 |url=http://fitzrovianews.com/2025/06/04/fitzrovia-arts-festival-2025/ |url-status=live |access-date=2025-06-15 |website=The Fitzrovia News |language=en-GB}}