Born in Zebulon, North Carolina and educated at Harvard University, Pippin began his career as an accompanist at George Balanchine's School of American Ballet in New York City.[5][6] In 1952, Pippin moved to San Francisco, and has been an integral part of that city's artistic life since then. Audiences have followed him from his start at the hungry i and Opus One in North Beach, through nearly two decades of presenting a weekly chamber music series (1960-1978) at the Old Spaghetti Factory, to his present-day fame as the creator of one of San Francisco's most popular operatic institutions.
Pippin's first translation came in 1968, in the course of preparing Mozart's one-act opera Bastien und Bastienne for performance as part of his chamber music series. The opera, and his singing translation of it, were immediate successes with San Francisco audiences.
^High Fidelity 1980 "When it opened its 1979 season in a new theater, Pippin scurried on stage, quickly surveyed the surroundings, and quipped with eyes slightly popping: "Is Pocket Opera becoming fancy, is it putting on airs? The answer is, you bet!" But fancy only in the perspective ... He took a degree at Harvard and penned what he now describes as some "pretty dismal stuff." He returned to music in the late 1940s as a ..."
