He studied at Christ Church, Oxford and at the Royal Academy of Music under Christopher Brown, where he was the recipient of several prizes and awards.
[1] He has also participated in classes and seminars with composers including Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Poul Ruders and Michael Finnissy.
[2] Pitkin was awarded a DMus in composition by the Royal College of Music in 2009, having received support from the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
A number of his works have been broadcast by BBC Radio 3, including the orchestral pieces Mesh and Borrowed Time; Con Spirito, for piano and Yamaha disklavier, which was shortlisted for a British Composer Award in 2008, and was part of the official British selection for the ISCM World Music Days in 2014; and choral pieces which are published by Oxford University Press as part of the New Horizons series.
His published writings include contributions to the proceedings of NIME and the ICMC, the SAGE Encyclopedia of Music in the Social and Behavioral Sciences (2014) and the Routledge Companion to Aural Skills Pedagogy (2021).